it's something that should be valued and should be used utilized. but pure will toy the extent you are comfortable doing that. sir? [inaudible]

[inaudible] [inaudible] [laughter] [inaudible] >> okay. books and it's important to distinguish between me and historians is that i'm a reporter. that's all i've ever seen myself doing. what i'm doing in the books is saying -- i'm saying here is what, you know, people have said. h is information. it's not stuff i found out myself inspect is stuff i'm relaying the scholars, historian, various academics and people like that. this is, you know, they have

found. really i'm doing the same thing i did if i was doing a newspaper or magazine article. i'm finding out what others have done. what the real brains of the world have done and relaying in it a way i hope will be acceptable to people. so the answer, you know, nay couldn't call me an authority on things like that. oiment not an authority of things like that. the people they have to call in are the people that i was citing as my sources response i'm sorry to disappoint you on that level. [laughter] >> the way you wrote it -- [inaudible] that was me fooling you. [laughter] yeah. you do. i get acquainted with the topic. not the level i'm in a position. i try really hard to make it clear that, you know, my sources and where it's coming from. if i don't state it in the text itself.

i try to provide cop use footnotes. for the very reason that almost, you know, almost all the -- i'm not qualified to make the judgment. to say this is, you know, an academic at ucla or, you know, a respected historian of princeton said that kind of thing. i like to thank you for your writing. i've spent many hours reading and laughs history -- i would like to know, i think we would all like to know if stephen katz is really real. [laughter] >> if he is, are you still friends? [laughter] >> yes. he's real. he's the most terrific guy in the world. his name is stephen katz.

i gave him dignity of a pseudonym to hide behind it. if so you hunt around on the internet, you can find i think a des moines, iowa register interview he did from years ago. he confirmed his existence he's not some purpose i came up. it's a person that probably not more indebted to any human being other than any wife than to him. because, you know, he was there purely voluntarily. he went out with me. we had a really tough time particularly at the beginning. not only was it sort of staggeringly hard for us. we were terribly out of shape. and having not really prepared ourself for the mentally. we were lucky with the weather we did it. it was sprinkling very late in the year. it was really cold and rained chilly rain. we were soaked to the skin a lot of time. and it was pretty horrible. then we got caught in a terrible blizzard.

things were not going well at all. if he said, look, bryson, i can't. i'm sorry i can't do this anymore inspect is -- had this is crazy. i'm leaving now. i wouldn't have blamed him at all. i couldn't have blamed him. he didn't do that. he stood by me. he stayed there as a loyal friend. i'm really am hugely indebted to him. and then when i wrote the book, you know, i portrayed him as this sort of large difficult, challenging, lumbering baa foon. that's what he is. [laughter] i'm joke. he's not. but he was challenging on the trail. and he would be the first to admit that. i had to use him for comic effect. and sometimes in your life you really, really desperately need to rely on a funny human being's good nature and he's one of those. i mean, he has remained a good friend. he hasn't held it against me.

he was happy to be the butt of a lot of jokes and, you know, he was extremely good natured about it. i've done events like in des moines, iowa where he's signed more books than i have. [laughter] so he's just a fantastic human being. and i can't, you know, begin to express how much in his debt i am. but he was a real hard work out there. he really was. everything i write in the book was absolutely true. believe me. it was -- but it was a challenge for both of us. ohio. over there about to be over here. sorry. i just want to -- [inaudible] [inaudible] [laughter] thank you.

[applause] i don't really have a question -- [inaudible] [inaudible] thank you very much. thank you. [applause] i'm grateful to you. that's very kind. are there anymore in the balcony? [laughter] [laughter] i'm aware that the time is marching on. i don't know what time we have to be out of here. perhaps a couple of more questions. because it's already five after 8:00. [inaudible]

>> well, i've never wanted to be -- i've never wanted to do one kind of book. i ended up for some years writing a lot of travel books. i got pigeon holed in to that. the books were successful, especially in britain and the commonwealth. so i was strongly encouraged to keep doing them. then i realized i didn't want to spend my life doing the same kind of book. i think it is, you know, it's a matter of diminish returns if you stick with the same kind of book and doing it over and over again. so i wanted to do different kinds ever books, and my publishers very reluctantly in the begin allowed know try other things. they thought it was crazy when i said i wanted to do a book about science and trying to understand science. i was lucky that did well. it got, you know, it was pretty

well received and it sold well. that encouraged them to allow me to do other thing. now i've gone soft i can't stop. thing a lot of ways they would be happier if i did the same kind of book all the time. and the kind of books where go out and get drunk or frightened or write comical episodes. i like to write toes those kinds of books. i want to keep doing that kind of thing, but i also like to do things that are slightly more serious that involve research and trying to gather information. and trying to -- i find a lot of pleasure in taking things generally perceived as dull and see if you can't make it interesting. on this side? >> really want to second what the gentleman in the balcony said about the amount of joy that come through in your book. you talk about writing two kinds of books. i think your voice is the author of that joy and some of exuberance come throughs through. both of those.

i'm wondering in term of your voice as a author. are there other journalists or authors that influenced you? >> yes, there's lot. there's lotses. i have often some -- -- and there they were almost book of the month club hardback he accumulated most in the '40s and '50s. biment -- by the time i got to be 14 years old i remember going to the living room there two big bookcases that were filled with the hardback books. i knew nothing about the books. none of them i know anything about. i remember pulling them down at random having no idea what i was going to find. that was the most wonderful experience because it was totally discovery. i had no idea -- [inaudible] and i saw my dad had eight or ten of the books. he's so funny. he's just wonderful. all of these novels and everything. i love those.

besides them there were a lot of essays by robert benchly almost completely forgotten now but funny essays who wrote a lot of stuff in the new yorker in the '20s and after wards. and i think my favorite of all the people i admired the most was sj plume and largely forgotten but funny but elegantly funny prose. so in term of -- in term of making me want to write words that make people laugh those are the guys that did it for me. there's lots of books by other people that opened my eyes to the joy of read and the idea of what books can take you to places you wouldn't go otherwise. and that was true almost all the books my dad had. most was pretty much fiction and non-fiction. it wasn't very challenging purchases adele for 13, 14, 15-year-old. and that kind of sucked note world of reading and writing and

made me really absolutely made me. to back writer for, you know, professionally when i grew up. so now that i've just implanted lot of other writers' names in your heads. i should suggest you buy all of those books after you have all of my mine first. [laughter] on that note, let me saw -- say thank you very much for welcoming me here tonight. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] the we would like to hear from you. tweet us your feedback we'd like to hear from you. tweet us your feedback. twitter.com/booktv.

chief correspondent of the "washington post" has a new book on the 2012 election. >> well, because i thought the election was a collision between a lot of things, two americas, the america that e elected president obama in 2008 and the america that elected the republicans to take com of the house in 2010. a collisions of philosophies, of ideology, and also a collision between two quite different permits and peoples in president obama and governor romney. you think about where each of them came from, they couldn't have been more different. >> was there a point where the winner of the collision could have been mitt romney? >> you could argue a year out the president was very vulnerable. in large part because it was not clear what was going happen with the economy. as we have played out the election, two i thinks.

one, i think the president's campaign was more skill and more effective both in the consistency and the shaping of its message, and also just in its organization and "get out and vote" operation. and many things they did with technology. having said that, i think by the end of the campaign, the deck was fairly women stacked against romney. it would have been a very heavy lift for him to be able to defeat the president in the end. >> was it significant that barack obama didn't get as many vote in 2012 as 2008? >> very significant. you have to go back to the 19th century to find a president re-elected with a smaller percentage of the vote than first elected. ic what it said was that, you know, my notion was 2008 was a historic campaign for all the reasons we know. and there was, i think, a feeling that the country might be able to move past a period of

very devicive politicses. and we saw in the subsequent four years that was not the case. in many ways we were more divided. and by 2012, you know, i think those divisions were so clear that it was going to be much more difficult for the president to achieve kind of a high water mark he had gotten in 2008. >> did mitt romney participate? were you able to interview mitt romney for "collision 2012" i was. in a sense surprisingly so. i've said to other people it's not thawfn a losing candidate wants to sit down with a reporter or book author who basically wants to ask a lot of questions about why didn't do you this. an why did you do this dumb thing and why didn't you think of that. he was gracious. we spent ninety minutes together. it was just tbotd of us. he answered all of my questions in that amount of time. he was, i thought, quite forthcoming in most areas.

there was still a couple of things i would say processing after the election. one in particular, peter, was the 47% comment that surfaced in september of 2012. i think he still was coming in to terms with exactly what he said. >> what is one other people thing people will learn? >> i think they will learn some of the doubts that governor romney had at the very early stage before he formally announced about whether he was the right candidate. i think they will learn how competitive president obama is, and how he was prepared to run in essence, a totally different kind of campaign in 2012 than he ran in 2008. and i think the other thing that people will take away from this is the degree to which 2012 gave us a window in to the politics of the future. >> dan, chief correspondent for "the washington post. his most recent book "collision

2012". you're watching booktv on c-span2. she talks about the role of african-american soldiers in the civil war. "in the forgotten black soldiers "she documents some 2,000 african-american soldiers who fought in the war included her great grandfather. thank you all for being here tonight. i'm so thrilled to have so many here filling up our chairs, and coming to hear this wonderful, wonderful speaker. we have -- we have met several years ago. and as we began to talk and she was telling me about her research and such, we were realized we had so many connections in ways we just could not imagine. one being, and council member

meyer didn't mention what our civil war side is. we happened to be union soldier site. lot of names on the wall of the house on the hill. and please, after wards go to our gallery and see our replica attic. which has many signature. but we have a connection because there's a connection between one of the soldiers on the wall in the house, and her story. and that was amazing. and then also connection with the region of pennsylvania. with her family and my husband's family. so we just felt like we were meant to be together and she was meant to speak here. we're thrilled to have her here tonight in the program. she's the daughter of the late ko rrk a and edgar patience. and retired high school biology teacher. so she told us she did not need

a mic tonight. we'll hold her to that. she's a product of the tsh public school system. she attended bennett college and received a bs degree in pennsylvania an ma degree from university in rutherford, new jersey. now the last time i read that, was before this letter came to her from king's college in pennsylvania. and in 2011, she received the honorary droct rain in humanities from the college. how wonderful, and i know how proud you are, doctor. plms since her retirement, in 1992, as a biles teacher, in

bloom feld new jersey. she developed an increased interest in genology. resulting in writing several books. the first one being created to be free. which was a historical novel based on the life of her great grandfather a runway north carolina slave. through living in virginia and provided her with the opportunity to go to the library of congress, and the national archives in washington, d.c. and during the past ten years, she collected -- who participation in the civil war had been forgotten by historians. and there's quite a story to that, because chef told they didn't exist. and so she showed them what -- what a lot of research could do. in addition to her first book, she's written four non-fiction books.

a book of 150 memoirs from bennett college was also put together from the women alumnae in north carolina. we are pleased to have her husband, edward moss here, they have been married for 61 years. wow. that's great. [applause] and they are parents of daughter brenda and sonar rick. and wound of their grandsons is here tonight. that is matt green. and without further ado, i would like to present you to dr. with a -- wan et a patience.

[applause] [applause] [laughter] that's a wonderful introdpux. thank you, everyone, for coming tonight. and thank you, especially for allowing me to share my research with all of you. i'm a fourth generation free woman of color. i'm a living bridge between my grandchild, matthew, and our slave ancestor, my paternal great grandfather. and because of grandpa's story i have spent the past 15 years researching a topic entirely new to me, black soldiers in the civil war. a topic little discussed prior to 1989, when the movie "glory i are "hit the big between. indeed, i had never learned anything about the black civil war soldiers in of the american history colleges i took in

either high school or in college. how about you? indeed have never learned anything about black history war soldiers. it was from experience that i knew about them. my knowledge was limited to decorating grandpa's grave back in pennsylvania each memorial day. bands played, muskets boomed. that's my interest in the civil war did not develop until 1998 when i read in "the washington post about a new monument to be honoring the black sailor and soldiers. i was excited to see grandpa's name. however, when i checked for his name in the national park data base i was shocked to read the

following words. no known soldiers. what? i exclaimed to my. i do a lot of talking to myself. [laughter] i know where grandpa's grave is marked by his union tome -- tombstone and american flag. i was soon to discover the names on the wall were only of those who served in segregated regimens. and only those names are stored in the national park data base. and when i approached several historians concerning the black men who served in white regimen -- a white regimen. as a biology teach we are, i hypothesized he was not the only

black soldier to serve in the white regular men. i was determined to find out if i were correct. my past presentation have focused solely on the forgotten. tonight i'm discussing are seven distinct category of civil war black soldiers. which sees which ones you already know. and which ones do you not. after the civil war developed 90 day maliciouses developed to protect washington, d.c. black men hurried to be enlist only to be rejected forbidding a

color men to bear arms in the army. even though some served and both the revolutionary war and the war of 1812. they managed to serve the union without rank and what could be called a first category of civil war soldiers. after attempting to join the local regular men when responded to the first call, the malicious trips he was refused because of his race. he was; however, seconded to the connecticut voluntary infantry as an independent. after the completed occur duration of three month he enlisted in the eighth volunteer infantry participating in july 21, 1868 in the first battle of

bull run. several month later, william henry johnson would participate in the burn side expedition that captured an island in north carolina. an auto biography he wrote that other new england black patriots were ib dependent on the island too. not known is the number of patriots who served the union before blacks fucially were allowed to become bona fide soldiers. a second category existed too during the early month of the war. there were some fully -- as the war progressed southern territory provides the largest number ever black soldiers seeking the employment and

freedom and safety offered behind the federal lines. black absconded and drove alone or with families. general ben butler introduced the term contraband. for those run away slaves. they were seized enemy property like cotton, machinery, and other goods. due to the rapidly growing number of contraband, the first confiscation act was signed on august 6, 1861. it and such property included slaves. the second confiscation act was passed 11 months later. it -- slaves of owner in rebellion against the united states. at the same time, the military act was passed. empowering the president to use both freed slaves in any capacity in the army such as,

quote, for the purpose of construction of entrenchment, or performing camp duty or any labor or any military or naval service. despite pleas from northern abolitionists, president lincoln continued to refuse blacks in the union army. regardless unofficial volunteer regular men such as the louisiana native guard. they were never accepted to the confederate army. after the general occupation new orleans in april 1862, 10% of those louisiana men joined the union army becoming the first, second, and third louisiana native guards. later having the distinction of

being the first three units officially mustard in to the union army. four month later another unofficial regular men of organized. consistenting primarily of slaves of arkansas and missouri. their performance in the missouri helped dispel the notion that black were unable or unwilling to fight. later it would become the fourth official black regular min. another composed of slaves the first south carolina was raised by generally david hunter. later to be come the fifth official black regular min. these five formerly unofficial make a third category of black

civil war soldiers. the summer of 1862, arrive with lincoln adamantly refusing a black man in the regular army. even though the black abolitionists frederick douglass continued pleading with the president. douglas and other leaders viewed black military services twofold. first, an opportunity to win a union victory. and second, for blacks to gain equality and rights as citizens. his prophetic words, perhaps were or yated in a voice similar to a familiar one today to some of us, maybe. perhaps. or james earl joan. you choose. and as you listen to these words

of frederick douglass, imagine. let the black man get upon his person. the black letters u.s. and let him get in eagle on his button and a musket on his shoulder as bullets in his pocket and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the united states. who do you hear? [laughter] but not until the war had dragged on for two long bitter years with mounting casualties as well as unsuccessful drafts with the president relent. first though he must sign a formal emancipation proclamation. which was finally issued on

january 1, 1863. it freed all slaves and repeal use states with the exception of those in areas already under union control. and did not bring -- fearful of losing those slaves in border states. secondly, the proclamation declared that black men could officially where the army. many immediately took advantage of the new ruling and joined mix race. there by creating a fourth category of black soldiers. again such -- only hair, eye, and skin color were listed as

physical characteristic. one such soldier in a mixed race was medal of hon nor. a member of 142nd new york infantry. he's buried in the green hill cemetery in amsterdam, new york. this fourth category includes also very light-skinned color men scattered in volunteer white regular group. the photograph of a was sent by a dissen dent after she read my first publication about the "forgotten black soldiers." of course not included in my first book. i didn't know anything about him. he is included though in the

revision. issued to organize black segregated commanded by white officers. and almost immediately the governor of massachusetts began recruiting free blacks. fly were distributed near and far from massachusetts to connecticut and pennsylvania, ohio, other northern states and even to canada. working to fill a first of 1,000

recruiters included prominent black frederick douglass and william henry johnson. the 45th massachusetts volunteer was the first northern black to be organized and among the recruit were two of frederick douglass' sons. the white officers were hand picked by the governor himself. subsequently, 23-year-old robert shaw became the chosen officer to lead the regular men had such great importance first because unlike the other black regularmen already organized in the south, it was composed of free black men.

would rest on the conduct of the 45th massachusetts battle when the nay sayers were insisting blacks would not, could not fight. having no clue about the fire in their soul ready to ignite. frederick douglass. the 54th massachusetts four performed valiantly. they. they were honor recipient served. it was sergeant william considered the first black recipient even though he wouldn't receive it until 1900. 37 years after his bravery at fort wagner. the first four northern black

were raised in montana and connecticut. they retained their state designation throughout the war 54th to 55th montana infantry. the fifth massachusetts calgary. and the 29th connecticut infantry make a fifth category. and on may 38th 1863 with great confidence and high expectations. the cornel's regimen proudly marched down the street. the memorial in boston, massachusetts. had the cornel on horse back and three rows of men marching behind. next a sixth category.

the u.s. ct. united states color troops referred to by frederick douglass as the save all arm. eventually there would be 175 that made up 10% of the union army and fought in 449 engagements on land and sea. including 39 major battles. what induced those black men to enwill iin the army? perhaps by what the fliers offered. bounty of $100. good food and clothing, pay, state aid for families, medal of honor winner major sergeant major fledwood stated his reason. quote, a double purpose induced me and most others to enlist. to assist in abolishing slavery

and to save the country from ruin, unquote. unveiled on july 18, 1998. the spirit of freedom and 11 foot bronze memorial. is located in the shaw section of washington, d.c., at the entrance of the youth street metro station. the monument is indescribed with names of black sailors and soldiers and their white officers who served in the segregated ridge men. one name found on the wall is

private samuel james patterson. my stepmother's grandfather, he was born to free parents in pennsylvania. at the age of 21 he left his small hometown for boston join the fifth massachusetts cavalry. following the war, he moved to pennsylvania where he joined the local post of the tar. others don civil war work cap.

samuel j. patterson poses proudly in his. the black number of black soldiers who served in the civil war is not known. it keeps increasing as present day researchers find additional names such as i'm doing. 185,000 is the common estimated number. it does not include those who are listed in white as undercook as my ancestor had. my seventh category; therefore, includes those who enlisted general order 323. many are identified as colored. note, that blacks was not used.

i found many names in the volume of the roasters of the civil war soldiers 1861 to 1865, compiled by -- the spt cause to be enlisted for each cook to allow by section 9 two undercooks of african dissent who shall receive for their full compensation $10 per month and one ration per day. $3 of said monthly pay may be used in clothing. the pay for white soldiers was $13 per month and $3.50 extra

for clothing equaling $16.50. the 54th maths refused the insulting pay and would not accept any money until the discriminate rule was changed on january 1st, 1864. the war was almost over. now concluding general order 3. they will be mustered in to service. in each case a remarking will be made on the enlistment paper showing they are under african dissent. their names will be born on the company muster role as the list of privates. they will be paid and their account kept like other enlisted men. they will also be dangered in a

same manner as other soldiers. by order of a secretary of war ed town send. unquote. and so general order 323 opened the door for contraband to abscond from their owners. my 17-year-old great grandfather was one of those run away slaves enlisting on january 1st, 1864. hen my interest in the faithful battle that took place there three months later. sunday, april 17, 1864. this seeing of prelim -- that participated in the four

day seeing ending in the yankee's defeat. many were killed. remaining were sent by train to the infamous andersonville prison in georgia. one was sergeant warren lee who in march 1862 was a member of the u.s. army first battalion engineers fighting in northern virginia. he left his signature on a wall in the front of the house. can you see it? lee got. company b corp. engineers, u.s.a. sometimes later he was captured in battle. he became a prisoner of war, and then luckily -- as soon as his health permitted he enlisted in the second montana heavy artillery company

h, which unfortunately was ordered to plymouth north carolina. and so on april 20th, 1864 captured and again became a prisoner of war. but not parole this time. somehow he managed to survive the war and several years later he penned the soldiers story captivity at andersonville. stimbeing debated even to the present time, is what happened to the black cooks and recruits who are awaiting their order at plymouth. they were not sent to andersonville prison. now i know about my great grandfather, though. since his regimen, apparently escaped capture following the battle on april 20th, 1864,

unquote. i wondered how it was possible when most of the yankees were killed or sent to andersonville prison. i want them to read my book. [laughter] secretly built in north carolina cornfield with the principle reason for the confederate victory. how many of you knew that? one person knew that. there's a lot for you to learn. now even if you are familiar with the story, you must read my book about the battle of

plymouth because it's the only one that has been written the chronicles the entire story from beginning to end concluding with how the yankees recaptured plymouth six months later in what some historians call, quote, the most daring mission of the civil war, unquote. the defeated yankees at plymouth were dubbed by their captors plymouth pilgrim because of the hats they were wearing. they marched in to andersonville prison and the spectators thought they looked like the pilgrim of massachusetts. [laughter] each regimen had choosing his own formal military attire. when the rebels attack, yankees they were getting ready for the

sunday dress parade. they thought it was a boring thing to do. each sunday get ready for the dress. until april 17th, 1864. out of the approximately 45,000 yankees incarcerated andersonville, only 102 known blacks are reported and 33 deaths. why such a small percentage of blacks? because unusual for black troop to be sent to the prison. being valuable property, say that needed to be returned to their masters not to languish or die in prison. or they were killed under the black flag of the quarter. meaning no mercy as what happened at fort pillow, tennessee. following the yankee defeat the several black recruits were

killed. others had private richard west was served in my great grandfather's regimen were remanded back to slavery which was in total contradiction to the union's demand that black soldiers be treated as prisoners of war. sin that was not happening, in 1864 almost coinciding with the date of the battle of plymouth, general brand shut down the prisoner exchanges. with the hope that change the mind of the confederate. it did not and so thousand of soldiers from both sides suffered and died and each side military prison. private john a contraband cook in the 85th new york infantry was garrison at plymouth. he was described on his military papers as hazel eyes with light

hair, a 21-year-old mill lot tow captured and detected as such and center along with the yankee captives to andersonville, where unfortunately he died six months later from the ranches of the prison. of course when the confederate reported his death no mention was made of his being colored. but his racial identification already was on his union papers. consequently private john is the possibly only known runway slave buried at andersonville. a fact i revealed to a representative from andersonville when attended his presentation. at first dubious, he was able to locate private john on his andersonville data base. later i received from

andersonville a photograph of john's grave site 5045 i had lies between white two white soldier and not in a colored section. another color soldier of interest is private thomas hemming. son of madison hemmings. son of sally u hemmings of month cello. in his memoir published in 1873, and the pike county republic, madison stated his son thomas had died at andersonville prison. sin his grave site is not among those listed in the record, he might be one of the 460 not identified. the andersonville civil war research file include the following remarking about thomas hemming, quote, reported to be the grandson of thomas jefferson.

unquote. both are listed in my book along with nearly 2,000 other forgotten blacks civil war soldiers. including my great grandfather i was surprised to see on my great grandfather's danger certificate surname. being ill lit rail runway slave not allowed to learn how to read or write not able to spell his name when he enlisted in the union army. therefore, the recruiter who what he presumed he was hearing. on other military records his name is spelled various ways. the final spelling is the surveillance act is name pennsylvania teachers gave his first child when she entered the

first grade at 1881. one of grandpa's favorite past time was the local gar comrades just like samuel j. patterson would. i have no idea if they knew each other. 12 miles of quite a distance by wagon. interestingly, though, two of his granddaughters of samuel j. patterson's granddaughters married two of crowders grandsons two generations later. you see, 12 miles not is up a great distance by automobile in the 1920. the gar symbol has five points each symbolizing a branch of the union's armed forces. the artillery symbol, cannon,

the infantry, marine crossed musket. and the navy, what else but an anchor. 80-year-old he poses in front of a pennsylvania home where his only known photograph. i'm going put in here i always thought he looked so old. [laughter] now that i'm there. [laughter] his february 4th, 1930 obituary reads, quote, buried with full military honors. three veterans of the civil war that detail the spanish-american war veteran in attendance at the

home and the grave president casket was draped with the american flag. at cemetery a detail spanish-american war fired a valley over the grave and taps were sounded. >> i would think that grandpa's union tombstone and the gar are proof enough that at least one black soldier served in one white regimen. if that does not suffice, additional proof is this acknowledgment of a commemorative brick in the wall of valor at the national civil war museum in harris berg, pennsylvania. created to be free is the novel i wrote about grandpa's 83 year journey from the sweet potato field of north carolina to the coalfield of northeastern

pennsylvania. i could not write his biography because i go not know that much about him. so i had to wave whey knew of my imagination. former slaves were reluctant to discuss their former lives. and their children didn't want to hear anything about their parents having been slaves. particularly way up in pennsylvania. they didn't want to hear about that. in 2008, just as i was about to publish a revised version of my "forgotten black soldier "i received a surprise telephone call from the historian of the alabama calgary. during her search for the burial site of each member of that regimen, she discovered 16 black cooks. .. ..

a union tombstone placed on the unmarked grave of private soman west. moreover she had located a boy scout trip and several local reenactors to participate in a memorial service at the highland park cemetery in warrenville ohio.

a volley was shot over the gravesite and homage paid to the no longer forgotten black soldier. several months later, linda telephoned me again to tell me that in the magnolia site cemetery in decatur alabama she had discovered the gravesite of another first alabama black soldier. his name was private amos mckinney. just how had she found him? it happen this way. a congressional aide from the fifth congressional district and a local pastor were preparing to index the historic black cemetery when they learned that amos mckinney, a civil war veteran, was buried there but no one knew where.

luckily his wife lucinda's tombstone was inscribed with mckinney and that is how her husband's gravesite was located. after the story about the indexing appeared in the local newspapers, the first alabama calvary historian telephoned peggy towns the congressional aide. glenda then contacted the u.s. department of veterans affairs to order a marker for private amos mckinney just as she had done for private simon west the year before. i was elated to be invited as a participant in the ceremony. my publicist, ms. reba barnes, and i flew to huntsville alabama and their we met mrs. johnny mckinney lester, the only living grandchild of amos mckinney. having those many years ago to

chicago she had returned to her home area recently never expecting to be the center of a fascinating bit of the devil where history. her grandpa's military service was being recognized after all of these years. even though she had an inkling about it, the subject was not discussed in her family. a black man having served in the union army was not something to brag about in alabama. i thought you might enjoy seeing some of the moving ceremony as photographed by ms. lawrence. members of the local high school rotc were present. as well as reenactors from the 13th united states troops living history association, preparing to present the colors. this older reenactor is

representative of the many dedicated men and women who donned woolen uniforms even on a steamy july afternoon, and it was hot. these reenactors of the first alabama calvary also participated. some civilian reenactors gathered. one of my favorites being the spirit of frederick douglass as michael crutcher of lexington, kentucky calls himself. others are all debt out for the occasion -- decked out for the occasion. here was a lady in mourning attire. i know she was hot. this day dress was probably much cooler. and proper church attire always required a hat and gloves. my publicist, ms. barnes

ms. lester and are descendents and i had sense enough to dress in cooling white. [laughter] mayor don stafford brought readings. to the mayors left is the flag draped union tombstone of private amos mckinney. with tears of joy in their eyes, granddaughter and great-grandson undraped the ancestor's tombstone. after lying for 99 years in an unmarked grave, private amos mckinney is no longer one of the forgotten. reenactors prepared to carry out the volleying. and homage is paid to the civil

war veterans, private amos mckinney. in conclusion, to learn additional interesting details regarding civil war black soldiers and sailors you must put on your to-do list a visit to the african-american civil war museum in washington d.c.. the museum is open to the public on tuesdays and saturdays. long vertical banners with interesting information line to visitors walk leading to the entrance. on the first saturday of each month at 11:00 at 1:00 p.m. the descendents hour is held during which time guests are given the opportunity to share their ancestors story. upon request extremely knowledgeable curator harry jones will guide you along a civil war timeline. a new material continues to be added such as my original

research on the forgotten black soldiers and white regiments. last year three generations of the descendents of private crowder patients presented a gift to the doctor fran smith director of the museum. this compilation of our ancestors and his discharge certificate now hangs on a wall in the descendents room where computers provide information for inquiring descendents and other researchers. my grandpa crowder patients represents the black soldiers who served in white regiments during the civil war. thank you. [applause] [applause]

[applause] >> thank you so much. that was just an incredible journey that you have taken, that your family and ancestors had taken and thank you for sharing all of that with us and when other people are discovering about their roots and what we can all learn more about the civil war. are there any questions for dr. moss? >> excuse me for not standing. a few months ago i couldn't walk did anyone contact you about three weeks ago about the civil war? >> i contacted the lady. >> i was wondering what they had because they were so much information there.

they had done a lot of research. >> when your grandfather died, crowder, were you born? >> he died in 1930 and i was warned in 1932. [laughter] just a baby. >> you were there actually black soldiers that served? >> oh yeah, i'm going there. >> that's for somebody else to talk about. you said yes? >> the museum of confederacy in richmond and the lady who is the curator of the documents showed us a number of roles that showed yes there were creoles. in some cases these members were

told to be discharged because they were creoles but she said a year later -- so they didn't go anywhere. those that were slaves i guess, i guess creoles were in a different category in louisiana. if you go to fort republic they have a confederate engineer unit that consisted of black soldiers. if you read between the lines they were slaves imported for building bridges and roads and so forth. but there were what would be classified as -- in the confederate army, yes. they talked to a lady down there. she survived that messy job too just as you have survived that messy job.

there is another side to this story that people should know about. >> if it was legal for them to invest, did people just ignore that? >> in the beginning of the war? they weren't called private. they were considered independent >> you were they really not paid them? >> i only know what i know. >> in andersonville claire barton was one that had the enlisted soldiers. did she know that there were some black soldiers that have died? until you told that gentleman, i was curious to know if she was

aware? >> she wouldn't known about the united states trips but the one i told you about was not with that group. they didn't even know he was black. >> she found that list. >> another question in the back please. >> i have a comment. i want to thank you for the book i am sitting here so proud of the fact that you would honor our ancestors in the way that you have and i believe that your work opens up a whole new, and i know you know this, a whole area that we have not given the honors we should have given. that touched on a certain

perspective but your -- makes it even more real for me so i just want to thank you. and i will buy your book. [laughter] for my children and my children's children. >> thank you, thank you. do we have another question? >> he found his way to pennsylvania. >> do you have another three hours? [laughter] do you really want to know? do you want to know? oh this is your husband. [laughter] all right. when the war was over, i'm not going to tell you, remember i'm not going to tell you that. you have to find that out in the book. when the war was over the remnants of the 103rd return to harrisburg pennsylvania to get their last pay and he was

among that group. in the history of the 103rd it lists the men. it lists his name. there is no racial identification in there. we wouldn't have known he had been a black man so he had his last day on the steps of the courthouse in harrisburg in sylvania. i don't know, my imagination says i'm not going back down south. my imagination thinks that and he worked for a man who bred horses. my great-grandfather was very good with horses in one of his jobs was to take the horses to the owner's farms so he would travel all over western pennsylvania. one time he was asked to go to wyoming valley. have you ever been to wyoming valley? ute full along the susquehanna river and he was so enchanted by that area he decided he was

going to move his family of there and that is why the patient's family has been there for six generations. the any other questions? >> i just have a question and i also have a common too. i was also very inspired just listening to how your interest created this quest to find all the answers she found the answers to but i was curious, when you first started your research did you come across groups of soldiers or was it one here, 10 there are, 20 there are? >> that would take another three hours. i started at zero, no, one. i started at one so i went to professor harold cops who was the head of the history

department where i got my bachelors. we were not the same age but anyway i went to him and i said to him, i told him the story of ramp-up. oh no there were no blacks and white regiments. i showed in the discharge papers so he looked. whoa. i said how many would have to find to have some clout? [laughter] so he said maybe 50. i said where would you suggest i begin? he said go to carlisle to the history center there and see what you can find. so i took a trip up there and i walked into this big building and i see this handsome gentleman. i was 15 or 16 years ago. this handsome older gentleman walking the floor. [laughter] so i went up to him and i said i

have a question to ask you. i said i hope you can give me some direction. i said people tell me this did not happen but my great-grandfather was in a white regiments and i want to know whether they're any more. he said wait here for a minute. he went back in some room and came out with a folder and he gave me a folder of a man by the name of private charles rafael furcal of foreign health. he said -- this was 1998. in 1948 he says somebody came here looking for this information. i said how do you remember that? he said this is the only one that i know. this is the only black man and a white regiments that i know. i said well i there any other soviet direct me to a book of

pennsylvania soldiers and remember when i read to you about order 323? the names at the end of the rosters of he showed me the roster of the pain you regiments and they went through all of them and came out of there with 100 names. that was my beginning so i said oh if there are pennsylvania regiments there have got to be other regiments. so i came out here to the library right around the corner somewhere the library in fairfax and i spoke to someone named mrs. levy. where are you? there you are, there you are. who sent me to her friend down in raleigh north carolina. do you remember her? she was the librarian in raleigh. you sent me there. you sent me there so i go

upstairs up to the second floor and i ask for her and she is at a desk. i cochair and i tell her what i've want and she says i've got something else. stand right here. i hope you're right that. i just stand right here and i'm looking here and looking there and i happened to look to the left of me and there was a whole wall of books called the roster of civil war soldiers, 1861 to 1865 by states. so now i pick up in sylvania and three volumes of pennsylvania. i look for pa, my great-grandfather's name and there he is in next to his name is cook. i don't know whether my grandmother could cook. he couldn't cook at home. [laughter] his cooking days were long ago.

so now i'm thinking about some of the other guys that i got from the pennsylvania regimen one being richard west so i look his name up and it just said cook. so i say to myself, i wonder if all of the cooks are black, and that sent me on another road to find out. this is what i think. the only person who was a cook enlisted as a cook were the blacks. white cooks were not cooks. they did not go under 323 so that is how i got a lot of the names, from those rosters. and people wrote have been writing to me and someone wrote me last week and sent me a whole lot of information. he was in concent. now there were people that read my work and they know somebody. they know where somebody is.

they know where to get the information. so if i live another 10 years, i will. from your lips to god's ears. the. [inaudible] >> if anybody wants to traipse through some black cemeteries and look for some names on the tombstones of union soldiers were u.s. ct is not, then i will have some more names. if it says u.s. ct those aren't the guys i'm looking for. i'm looking for black union soldiers buried in this cemetery that does not have u.s. ct on the tim don. that was just opened up to me by a woman in new jersey. because of my work, she decided to look through these cemeteries

and found the ones that did not have u.s. ct and she has published a nice little luck on those names. i hope this is going to mushroom as you said, mushroom. >> there was one in north carolina and one in newport north virginia. >> whoa. okay, all right. >> i want to again thank you so much.

see a familiar face, ray suarez former senior correspondent were "pbs newshour" and now with al-jazeera america. before we talk about the book mr. suarez when did you make the move vote for two al-jazeera? >> just a couple of days ago. my first day on the air was november 11 and so far, so good. >> why the move? >> it was time. sometimes you have been in a place place for a wild and you've done everything you can bear and there were new opportunities and some great chances for advancement at al-jazeera america and it's a start up with everything that implies, fresh, energetic,

forward-looking and really fun. my staff keeps me young. everyone is 27 years old. ray suarez this is booktv so we want to talk to about this 500 year legacy that shaped a nation of latino americans. what sparked you to write this? >> the publishers approached me and pbs was about to launch a big documentary series on the same subject. they wanted something that would be a handbook that would both be for a general audience, so america's who aren't latina kind of wondering what's the difference between a mexican and a puerto rican and a dominican and when did they come and why are they here and what's the background and of how is this change in the country? then letting us ordinarily taught their own history if they went to public schools so in the book i say at least once a chapter you don't say i didn't know that, how come i didn't

know that? i think that it both assignments pretty well for the general audience, sort of having them an idea of how one out of six of their fellow citizens came to be here and for the latino audience some affirmation. a little history they didn't know of proud and not so proud history and leaning forward for the next 20, 30, 40 years when we will become an even bigger part of america. >> whited to start 500 years ago in 1500? >> the first european settlement in what became the united states not in the western hemisphere, not in north america but in what in the united states was the time of soldiers, priests and settlers who came up from mexico city into what's now new mexico and settled in santa fe. i started there because to me

that's where the united states was born. before jamestown before saint ago florida. people try to make a way to the dry scrub the southwest. they were looking for salt. they were looking for gold. they were looking for place to herd cattle so that they could sell hides in mexico city and that is where that entrepreneurial mercantile restless move in the united states begins for me. so i started in new mexico. in the 16th century. ray suarez what is one thing we are going to learn in reading latino americans? >> that 23 states of the current united states were once all or part of the spanish empire. in vancouver island in what's now british columbia clear across to florida in this

enormous crescent. that was all part of the spanish empire and there were really three empires, the spanish, the french and english with their elbows out wrapping up against each other pushing up against each other so i'm suggesting that you think of united states not just as in english name that starts on the east coast and moved to the pacific but has a multi-empire thing that wrestles until we have a winner. and that's the united states that takes in people from everywhere and make some americans. ray suarez at al-jazeera. the book is called latino americans, the 500 year legacy that shaped a nation and you are watching book tv here on c-span2. >> on many campuses young women are taught that they live in a patriarchal society and channeled into low-paying fields. once in the workplace they are

cheated out of 25% of their salary and they face invisible barriers and all sorts of forces that hold them down and keep them back and keep them out of the high echelons of power. this picture just doesn't fit reality. it's distorted. the false claims that sub ported it have been repeated so many times that they have taken on this aura of truth.

be thank you very much. i want to thank the los angeles museum of the holocaust for giving me this opportunity to talk to you. can you hear me in the back wax i should speak more loudly? is this better? better or too loud? i'm looking at the back. i also want to make sure i don't speak too quickly. ..

so i want to mention that. contribution to that particular project was significant. i want to thank you for that. okay. this story of women, ordinary german women was not something i went to the archives looking for. i went to the archives in in the summer of 1992 with a different question. this is rather typical of historical research you think you're going go after something then you go to an archive and find file that looks strange and

gets you wondering why is it here? and you kind of put it on your desk, you know, and then you think maybe this will develop in to something i'm not sure. so in the summer of 1992, the soviet union collapsed. ukraine had become an independent country. i saw it as an opportunity as a scholar, i was a graduate student to go to the territory and try to see what was there. i had been looking at material in the national archives in washington, d.c., the things that the military had scooped up. the allies had scooped up. things like the trial documents and capture german records. a lot of material in washington was essentially the high command order. things captured in germany proper. documents from berlin and other nazi agencies that were headquartered in germany itself. so the question remained what about all of those regional

offices where the germans set up the operations in ukraine, the baltics, lithuania, sedona, where the crime os curred. what was going out in the field? and it really took the collapse of the soviet union for us not only to get access to the materials and get to the archives but start to understand and imagine the scope of the violence that was occurring in the kind of open-air settings outside those gassing -- those killing centers. if you're floor with the work like "bloodland." it's more apparent it's close to half the victim of the holocaust perished outside the gassing center. in the open-air mass shootings. during the deordeportation in

the communities. so my first trip in the summer of 1992, i made my way to the regional archive about 100 miles -- sorry? yeah. about 100 miles from kia. on the way to kia. and the reason why i went there, was because i figured out from my advisers richard brightman wrote a head of the whole ss police apparatus. that hitler had the headquarter there. and that hitler 4 -- about 50 miles due south. so i thought here is an interesting place. it's in the heart of settlement. which was important for jewish -- russian-jewish history. katherine the great set up this population to this particular. it was the heart land of jewish history as far as empire, obviously, a large population of

jews. the communities had concentrations of jews. sometimes 30 to 50% in towns of course around kia. i thought, okay, you've got hitler stationed there, a high concentration of jews, maybe there's german documentation from the war in the regional archive and i can start to understand what happened locally and whether or not hitler had a direct influence on that. in early '90s the big question hole cast was the decision making question. when did the holocaust begin? can we find a smoking gun a hitler order? that have thinking when i went went out there. i was naive to think maybe i can find. often some of the most important material doesn't turn up in the headquarter but because someone gets copied on a file in a lower level. and i thought maybe i'm going find some really important high level director that will tell us

how the holocaust started and the direct chris, you know, hitler's direct influence on that. when i got to the archive, i was astounded because there was a significant collection of material, things that i knew no one had looked at before. these were files that had literally no footprints on the documents. the edges were burnt. i can imagine when the red army came to the region and reoccupied they were just picking this stop off the street. and shoving them in files. and the stuff there was incredibly gracious because of this moment in time, this kind of ukraine was just establishing i.t. as a country that hadn't really instituted are civile procedure. there was a lot of open access. things had that had been classified were getting to me. they were bringing me tea and sandwiches and very, very nice

thing. i didn't expect it. but the woman who was very generous with the material didn't read german. i was looking at german files. and so that was interesting. i thought, well, she doesn't know what is in here. and i found a lot of material, and there's no copy machines. so i was just transcribing as fast as i could. among the files was this list, a very innocuous personnel list that showed nine unmarried women. and i could see from the birth date they were basically between the ages of 18 and 25. and they were sent to that region as teachers and welfare workers, and they were sent charactered with doing the kind of colonial missionary work. they were supposed to be kind of civilizing, you know, the ethnic german. germ nicing this region. it's going to be the nazi thinking.

the utopia. the living space is going to be the empire for germans only. hitler had referred to parts of ukraine around. he said it's going to be our area. they were building an auto bahn through there. nongerman were going to be eliminated starting with the jews. they were going to completely transform the landscape down to every flower and bush. they had all the technocrats and specialists going around trying to turn to the utopia. that's why they were located in the region. they had a direct hand in creating these experimental colonies. the women were brought in to participate in that. in this colinnization process. initially thought why are these young women here? this is a war zone. this is, you know, where the war

destruction, as the germans called it, is taking place. the titanic struggle. the partisan warfare, military campaign. i thought ordinary german women were at home taking care of the home front and having babies so more soldiers could go to battle and more territory could be conquered. here is an example of the kind of document -- this is not from the archive, but just to show you the personnel. i started to realize this phenomena of the women going east i could start to find document takes from other parts of eastern europe. local regional records. these are young women. you can see -- the telephone operators.

one is situated in the kind of, you know, office as a -- kind of an executive secretary in the front office. and starting to figure out through this documentation that women -- that the document i found is possibly the tip of the iceberg. and when i went back to washington, after that first trip, i went back to ukraine several times after that, i looked at what existed. thought, okay, if i have discovered -- let me see if general holocaust history books and kind of nazi germany books and books on the second world war, to what extend to women figure in the book. are they present in the places. maybe someone else has already come across this and documented and talked about it.

and i'm starting to look at some of the standard -- when i couldn't find the women in the indexes of the book. i would find some women as camp guards. i have trying to find them on the map of eastern europe. i was not finding them. i was finding them in a lot of photographs, you know, had to expand my research effort in to all different types of sources. this is the challenge of writing women u's history. especially of writing about women who are emerging in these place and all different capacity. if a wife or girlfriend goes to the eastern territory, she is not going to be if there's not going to be a big paper trail. you find these women circulating and we find them in photographs. and this is classic image of a group shot. here we have a group from that -- the common daunt, you see the

woman seated next to the man. i think -- [inaudible] who was a cook. and it says on the caption, an unknown woman. and then there's another unknown woman down there below. and on the cover of the book there's another unknown woman. i wanted to find out who these unknown women were and how many were there. and what were they doing? and in holocaust history, i also noticed that a lot of research had been devoted to coming up with different perpetrator type. so we had these kind of characterizations that emerged in the literature. you have, of course, the sadistic killer, you have the eliminations antisemimite. you have the ordinary man, you have the arabmen, the tech no karat. the foot soldier, so these types had emerged and we were

expanding our understanding of perpetration of the holocaust with these kinds of nuances and the similar kind of development was not happening vis-a-vis how we understood women's role. that was something i thought about and thought, well, is there a female version of an iceman? is there a female version of an ordinary man? is there a female version where women put in uniform or put in to kind of killing units or all the things i had read about in male perpetrators. i started to question what extent women might fit to the category. i went back to the standard documentation that we've been using. that was my review of the literature. then i went back to the archives to some of the things we had been using and investigative material even the neuron berg material. i tarted to notice that women were called to testify a lot. they were brought in. they were very instrumental, for

instance, at the trials. i started to realize, well, these women are coming in to testify against their male bosses or even their spases. they have at lough information. they are providing a lot of historical valuable information to prosecutors. information that has historians have called pulled out of the documentation and written history from. but not really question why does the women know so much. how come she's telling me every detail about the procedure taken in the proper way that documents were handled, how orders were conveyed to killing units, the mood in the office, what happened in term of the distribution of property who has access to the safe, you know, to classified material identifying, obviously, killers and often describing scenes at actual mas consider. at the killing sites. so i started to realize as well that the women's testimony had

been kind of underappreciated or taken for granted in many ways and we hadn't asked in looking at the testimony how how come they know so much. they must have been there. if they were there, what d they go they not revealing in the testimony. we have to go back to the traditional sources and ask new questions. and eventually i was able to determine by this collecting effort that went on many years that there were approximately -- this is a kind of rough estimate and future research may in fact change this, but i could account for about a half a million german women who circulatedded in the eastern territory during the war in different capacities. the german red cross trained 640,000 women during the nazi era. 400,000 of the them were in

wartime service. and some 300,000 of them were in the eastern territory. the german army trained a lot half million women in support positions a flight recorders, radio operators, wiretappers. him leer's reich. they had to maintain secrecy. and they were special auxiliaries. 2500 were sent to one region alone in poland to participate in this germanization effort to set up cinder garten when they came in to teach them all about the nazi ideology and so forth. so this -- these were 200 -- and of course over 240,000 women were ss

bride. the wives of ss men, and they were encouraged to go stay with their men. because the ss organization was also a breeding organization that lead to racial organization. so we find many ss wives in these locations where they're men were so they could be together and propagate -- you know, continue to promote the race and have more children. here is an image, i think it's quite ill straitive. the nurses being sworn in. it's during the war. all of them in uniform. and then that other image to the right is from the cover of a brochure. the east needs you. this is trying to recruit women to be resettlement advisers so when ethnic german refugee were brought to the colony. was the german women brought in

to teach them the language, teach them german songs, german cooking, how to maintain a proper german household. all of these kinds of activity. now while i was putting this picture together, what it came to be -- when i came to realize was a whole generation of german women, because if you think about it, who are the individuals who are going to be going off, you know, in the nursing staff in the secretarial staff, as the wiveses. these are young women. all right young women who were for the fertile and repuce. and young women who are single, who are working in the off and working in the nursing professions and as teachers. suddenly i noticed most of the women were born between 1920 and

1924 think about. and so now i not only had women on the eastern territory but i had a kind of looked like a generational phenom that was emerged. i start to refer to them the first world war i baby boomers. and this fitses in to the general history of nazi germany that the leadership itself was young. those who committed these crime were young within the german population. you have people like hitler in their 40s with enormous amount of power. and similarly women, you know, of marriage age in their 20s also wielding considerable power. and the m my indications of that of young people wielding this kind of life and death ability decisions. in the summer of 2005, i went to

the u.s. holocaust memorial me such still on this collecting effort. piecing this together. hasn't written my results yet. thing were just starting to take shape, and i at this point wasn't really sure how close they got to the killing. i could -- i had evidence to show they were many more were direct witnesses. that many more than were in the machinery as secretaries in particular. but i didn't have a lot of cases of killers. and the last couple of years this is when i started to turn these up as my research focused on those perpetrators. this is a case that i came across in the archives in washington, and i distinctly remember going through that microfilm, and being really just so astonished by this --

these documents. even 60 plus years after the events, of absolutely chilling. this case is one of the more prominent one. the name of the individual is berna. the reason why we have the documentation on this killer is because she was arrested by the east germans. and she was interrogated by the east german police. and this report -- chef -- her husband, the two of them, stood trial together in 1962. so when i look in the finding i thought this is an unbelievable case. a husband and wife standing trial together. the husband gets guillotine, she gets life sentence and committed their crime on a farm in ukraine. outside the camp system. already when i saw it on the finding i thought i have to look at this case. and then i get in to the reel and i see this confession here.

you can see on the right. that's her arrest certificate. when she was apprehended. that's her mug shot. there to the right is beginning of what is a confession. if you look on the reasoned, if you can make that out. you can see that she's interrogated the full day with i think one lunch break and starts in the morning and end at 9:45. and of course, this is a nice, clean copy. someone got the information out of her. then they made this digest of it for the record. and in this document she admits to killing six jewish boys on their farm. and shooting them in the back of the neck.

so she's one of an entire generation of young german women who saw their future in the reich in the eastern territory. they arrived there through all different path and trajectories. they shared certain outlooks. certain ambitions. she admitted in her confession that the reason why she killed those children was because she had been so indocket nateed in the 1920s and taught to hate jew. she also said in her confession that she wanted to prove herself to the men. many of these women that when they went east will put in all kinds ever confronted all kinds of new situations but they went there with a certain idealism, certain conviction, certain ambition and certain hopes and dreams. many of them, of course, didn't go volunteerly because they had wartime service. but they did share this kind of nationalist outlook as to, you

know, where they were there and had to defend their reich. one of my case, the nurse who was probably the most moral sensibility and the most conflicted about the violence she still, when i interviewed her in 2010. it was clear to me that she didn't question that she had to be there to defend her homeland and even after she had seen some of the mo horrific or heard about and talked to some of the most worst perpetrators in ukraine. she followed her orders and went to -- went even deeper farther east to the war zone. that she did not question. her sense of duty prevailed over a kind of sense of morality. in this regard, men were no different from women. so here you can see the scale -- i talked about scale in term of the number of women. now you can see geographically what we're talking about in term of the eastern territories.

the stretch all the way through poland. the baltic to the north. ukraine, and this is where these women are stationed. and this is, of course, where the most of the most of the violence and mass killing of the host cost occur -- holocaust occurred. today i want to, in a time remaining focus just on a couple more case studies i have mentioned. that's one of the worst. but i want to stress today that my intention to write this book is not, you know, to shock to -- it is shocking information. t very disturbing information when you get to the cases of the killers in particular. and just the every day experiences of women as they intersected with the holocaust. but i want readers to gain a better sense to try to

understand why the women went there to begin with. what they saw and why they responded in the different ways they did. the majority of them were witnesses. then the next level of participation was polices in the machinery in these professional capacities, and then you have the outstanding cases of the perpetrators. anet is the nurse i referred to. and she was the one who went -- and then from there she went to -- and she's a very come complex character. in many ways a likable figure in the book. here is someone who got flown in to a situation and trying to find ways to cope with that. she was better educate. most of the women in the book

had grammar school education. and were members of the german the hitler youth for girls. and had some sort of secretarial training. worked as nannies or worked helping out on farms or in, you know, restaurants, you know, kind of working class. she, on the other hand, had training in law and got her law degree in the 1930s which was pretty unusual. you can see she was born in 1920. she's till alive. and she decided when she was called upon when the war broke out and had to fulfill her patriotic duty, she was going to join the red cross. which had a very, you know, during the first world war developed in to a kind of organization that attracted middle to upper class women. it was more distinguished way to show your patriotism. she said i'm going the red cross. and lo and behold she didn't

have medical training. she was pulled out of the training because they immediately noticed she was someone who was cultured and said well, you know, we're going set up the leadership. we're setting up these special soldier's homes in the rear areas and occupy territories. this is a photograph from her personal album of one of the homes where the soldiers can find, you know, retreats. soldiers going to have front and then returning can have the stop overs the places where they get german cooking and interact with nice german women. and relax and reck rate and so forth. and there were about 1200 german women like her who were sent to the east to manage these soldiers' home. she ended up being sent to -- [inaudible] as i mentioned inspect a town that had a pop laying of about

9,000 jew. shortly before she went on her journey east, and for all of these women, this moment of going east, you know, of tran formative. they hadn't been out of their town and individuals. just to go to a new place of enormous change. let alone to go to a new place and suddenly see they were in the so-called killings field and the warfare. and the genocide. even before she got there, a journalist in berlin said to her, why are you -- this is summer of 1941 why are you going the east? don't you know they're killing jews there? ..

because this woman had a disabled sister and they weren't sure if she was trying to save her sister and in any event they ended up killing both of these jewish women but though men start to tell her that story and she says oh. then she gets off the train at her location where she has -- where she is going to be stationed in the first night they are having dinner