Interrogation

Heroes Remember

Interrogation

Transcript

We had to do four interrogations, something like you’re doing here, four interrogations a day. After we were finished, interrogations, took about two hours to do one. We had our format that we followed. You know just like you, where you’re born, where you’re from, so forth and so forth and so forth and you asked your question in German. You wrote it on your sheet in English then when you were finished then your eyes read English, your tongue spoke German. Read it back to them in German and then if they were satisfied, they signed it. If they weren’t satisfied, you just took it all in front of them, tore it all up, you had a little pot there, you lit it and burnt it right in front of them. And then they went to another interrogator. You didn’t do the same thing over. But after you finished your four in a day, then I learned to type, five copies of each interrogation. Oh, we spent about 16 to 18 hours a day in interrogations and typing. That went on for about ten days. Then all of a sudden we said, look, our officer said this got to have something here. So he got a hold of intelligence headquarters and they brought us six secretaries that did our typing for us. Dutch girls that were legal secretaries and they were all sworn to secrecy and what not and they worked with us. And oh that made it a real hallelujah ball, because we didn’t have to type those... Do you know what I think they made us do, instead of writing it out long hand we had to print so they could read it, so they could decipher ... so I learned to print faster than I could write.

Description

After the British took over a concentration camp in Esterwegen, Mr. Decker was sent into interrogate the German staff.

Ted Decker

Ted Decker was born in 1918 in Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan. His father was an an immigrant from Austria, and worked in a coal mine in Drumheller at first, before working on farms in Southern Saskatchewan. His Mother was a district midwife who delivered over 60 babies in the area. Mr. Decker grew up with two brothers and three sisters,in a community where a Germany pastor taught him on Saturdays to read and write different languages including German. He went to school until grade seven and worked on a farm until he was seventeen. In 1940 Mr. Decker went into Yorkton to enlist and was denied, he was finally sworn in on February 5,1941 as a volunteer with the south Saskatchewan regiment as a reinforcement. After his father disowned him for joining the army he took an non-commissioned officer's course and he worked as a firing range instructor at Fort Osborne,Winnipeg until he left for overseas on December 13.

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