Born on January 23, 1927, John Weiss grew up in a typical American household. Living in Chicago, Illinois, he was set up for what seemed like an average childhood, however, it was not until he reached the age of twelve years old, would the extraordinary events of his life argue otherwise.

In 1939, John traveled with his mom, dad, and sisters from his home in Chicago to Vienna, Austria, to visit family who had owned their own farm. It was supposed to be just a short visit, as they had planned to return home after a short stay. Three days after arriving, however, World War II broke out. The country's borders had been closed and John was unable to leave Austria to return back home to the United States. To this day he is still able to recall when he first arrived, seeing every building and car window blackened out to avoid being seen by bomber planes flying above. After witnessing this for the first time, John had said to his mother, “Mom, I want to go home.” All his mother could say was “We can’t.” At this time, however, he did not understand why he could not leave. He later learned that when Hitler had first taken over, new policies were implemented and it was determined that John’s mother was a German citizen, and since John was only twelve years old, he was to become a German citizen as well, even though he was born and raised in …show more content…
The rest of his family was not able to come home with him right away because of paperwork troubles, but eventually, they had made it back home as well. After he had been back home in Chicago for awhile, he had met his wife Nancy. One of John’s friends had told him that they knew of a family from Austria with the same last name of Weiss, so John had agreed to meet the family. John and Ilse were married for 58 years before she passed away. In the words of John, “I had a good life, the best life is when I met my