I had no idea Robert Clary was a Holocausr survivor. Truly a tribute to him that he could be a part of that show.
Prayers to all his friends and family.
Quite a few of the cast escaped Nazi Germany.
From WiKi:
The actors who played the four major German roles—
Werner Klemperer (Klink),
[16] John Banner (Schultz),
Leon Askin (General Burkhalter), and
Howard Caine (Major Hochstetter)—were all
Jewish. Furthermore, Klemperer, Banner, and Askin had all fled the Nazis during World War II (Caine, whose birth name was Cohen, was an American). Further, Robert Clary, a French Jew who played LeBeau, spent three years in a
concentration camp (with an identity tattoo from the camp on his arm, "A-5714"); his parents and other family members were killed there. Likewise, Banner had been held in a (pre-war)
concentration camp and his family was killed during the war. Askin was also in a pre-war French
internment camp and his parents were killed at
Treblinka. Other Jewish actors, including
Harold Gould and
Harold J. Stone, made multiple appearances playing German generals.
As a teenager, Klemperer, the son of conductor
Otto Klemperer, fled Hitler's Germany with his family in 1933. During the show's production, he insisted that Hogan always win against his Nazi captors, or else he would not take the part of Klink. He defended his role by claiming, "I am an actor. If I can play Richard III, I can play a Nazi." Banner attempted to sum up the paradox of his role by saying, "Who can play Nazis better than us Jews?" Klemperer, Banner, Caine, Gould, and Askin had all spent the real Second World War serving in the U.S. Armed Forces—Banner
[17] and Askin in the U.S. Army Air Corps, Caine in the U.S. Navy, Gould with the U.S. Army, and Klemperer in a
U.S. Army Entertainment Unit. But the sitcom was not the first time Klemperer had played a Nazi: In 1961 he played captured Nazi Emil Hahn in
Judgment at Nuremberg, and also in 1961 he starred as the title character in the serious drama
Operation Eichmann, which also featured Banner in a supporting role.
Ruta Lee,
Theodore Marcuse, and
Oscar Beregi, Jr. also appeared in the film, each of whom went on to make several guest appearances on
Hogan’s Heroes.
.
