The French pastry chef: Or, the story of an Alsatian forced conscript in San Francisco

 

For over a decade, Dr. Elizabeth Vlossak has been researching and writing on the history and memory of non-German soldiers drafted by forced into the Werhmacht. In April 2024, she was contacted by Joanne Perez, the daughter of an Alsatian “forced conscript” who asked if she would be willing to help her record her father’s story so it could be passed down to her grandchildren. Born near Strasbourg in the village of Geispolsheim in 1922, Antoine Oswald was drafted by force into the German army in 1943, served and was wounded on the Eastern Front, and spent several months in the infamous Tambov POW camp before being repatriated to his home town in the summer of 1945. In 1946, Oswald immigrated to the United States and settled in San Francisco, where he opened a French patisserie, Antoine’s. In the 1960s he sold his business and moved his family to Lake Tahoe where he ran a motel until life-threatening injuries he sustained in a car accident forced him to retire. Antoine Oswald died at his home in Minden, Nevada, in 1994, at the age of 92.

 

In her talk, Elizabeth described the process of piecing together Oswald’s life based on Joanne’s memories of her father, the stories he chose to share with her, and a personal archive that Oswald had created but Joanne was unable to read. Elizabeth highlighted how the information she uncovered in Oswald’s documents impacted Joanne’s received knowledge and family “lore.” She also reflected on how historians can ensure an ethics of care while engaging in critical scholarly research. Elizabeth will conclude by revealing how collaborating with Joanne has radically transformed her current research project as well as her understanding of community engaged research, shared authority, and the roles and responsiblities of historians in our present political climate.

 

 

Dr. Elizabeth Vlossak is an Associate Professor of History and the Associate Dean of Research & Graduate Studies for the Faculty of Humanities at Brock University. She teaches courses on 20th-century Europe and World History, with a focus on Weimar and Nazi Germany, urban history, nations and nationalism, public history, and oral history. Her research expertise includes the cultural history of war, gender and nationalism, memory and the politics of commemoration, the history of the Niagara region, and, most recently, Taylor Swift. She is the author of Marianne or Germania? Nationalizing Women in Alsace 1870-1946 (Oxford University Press, 2010), as well as articles, working papers, and book chapters on postwar reconstruction and commemoration, writing the history of nationalism, Alsatian forced conscripts in history and memory, and Nazi forced labour policies. She is also the co-director of the Sport Oral History Archive (SOHA), an online, open-access and interactive archive preserving local and national sporting legacies.