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Morris Parloff

»I think in my own mind that we were under fire every time we went out. They said: “Don’t go down there, there are the Germans down there and they’ve been killing us. Terrible.” I said: “Thank you”, and we would go. It´s an example of the kind of thinking I was indulging in. You know, the fantasy of nobody who is with me ever gets hurt. We´ve gotta to be in this comic strip next week. And it worked, for some unbelievable reason it worked.«

Biography

Born in 1918 in Cleveland, Ohio, Morris Parloff is one of the few Americans who are trained at Camp Ritchie. He studies psychology and social work and enters the army in 1942. He learned his German in high school and speaks Yiddish. End of 1943 he is transferred to Camp Ritchie and is trained as an IPW, interrogator of prisoners of war.

Three months after D-Day he arrives with his team in France. Together with Ritchie Boy Richard Schifter, he is assigned to a special unit. Their task is to gather important documents and to arrest certain people. During the Battle of the Bulge, Morris Parloff’s team is trapped in Aachen, the first German city that fell into allied hands. He and his men use the time to interrogate 11,800 people in Aachen who haven’t fled. This massive interrogation contributes to the famous questionnaire used in the denazification process.

In the end of 1945 Morris Parloff returns to the United States. He earns a PhD in clinical psychology, works as a psychologist and becomes a leading research figure in the National Institute for Mental Health. He lives in Bethesda, MD, near Washington.

     
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