It was the only way, and, of course, many veterans also were in pretty difficult financial straits, so that was another thing that we had in common. I mean, I didn't even have enough money to be able to get a bus, or a train ticket to go home. One other thing, I didn't have a penny to my name. SI: In interviews that we've done with people coming out of high school and who like yourself were going to Rutgers in '46, they said that there was a real division between them and the veterans, they weren't able to relate, but you apparently were able to. So, it was a very different attitude from what it is like today. I made very good friends with many of these people. I really shared in many ways the experiences of the veterans, many of whom had been in France and in Germany, where I had also been, so we really had a lot in common. But anyway having just come from Europe I was in this country only five years, I came in '41, and had gone through some pretty difficult times. No I'm sorry it was eighteen and my parents and sister had become citizens in 1946, I had to wait till 1949, because I was over twelve at the time but anyway because of that I wasn't drafted, otherwise I might just have been drafted towards the end of the draft. The way it worked was that if you were over the age of twelve when the rest of your family like your parents and siblings became citizens you had to wait till you were twenty-one. We had, we, meaning the United States, the craziest immigration laws. HF: Yes, well, my background, I was not in the army, I don't know whether I explained that before, because I wasn't a citizen and, since the war was over, the draft board didn't take non-citizens and it was kind of complicated because of that. They were very, very serious about wanting to get a degree and to learn something. They didn't belong to fraternities, and many of them were considerably older than seventeen or eighteen. HF: It was a mood of, "We really have to get to work, learn something, and get out of here," because a very large percentage of the undergraduate male student body were veterans. What was the mood around Rutgers after the war? PA: You were a freshman in '46, which is the first class after World War II. SI: I just wanted to pick up where your first interview left off and ask you a few questions about your undergraduate experience at Rutgers. Fisher, thank you very much for having us here today. Shaun Illingworth: This begins an interview with Professor Hans Fisher on Main New Brunswick, New Jersey with Shaun Illingworth.
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