George Worth - The Hungarian who spoke all languages

Posted by Pat Shannon September 23, 2022

George Worth - The Hungarian who spoke all languages

George Worth - "the Hungarian who spoke all languages" - that is how Clem described George on the back of this photo. This photo was taken most likely just after the Battle of the Bulge as there are other photos of Clem's unit with the same background and weather conditions. Clem didn't refer to George as being Jewish, but he must have known his background.

1st Lt. Clem McGuire and Staff Sergeant George Worth

at the end of the Battle of the Bulge - January 1945

George was born near Budapest, Hungary with the name of Woittitz Gyorgy. In 1937, when George was 22 years old, it was becoming increasingly dangerous for Jews in Europe. He and his family fled first to Cuba because they could not get a visa to go directly to the US. George did however manage to get to New York City by 1939 and was written up in the "Talk of the Town" section of the New Yorker Magazine. George must have made an impression with his swashbuckling ability to fence and was described as a "Hungarian fencing champion".

After the US declared war on Germany in 1941 George enlisted in the US Army as a Non - US Citizen, and was eventually assigned as a replacement soldier in Normandy, France a month after the D-Day landings. A few days after the Battle of St. Lo (July 1944), which cost the division nearly a third of its men, George was transferred from the Replacement Depot to the 35th Division. Initially he was put into Company "A" a front line infantry company, as a Scout. These front line companies had a very high attrition rate. A lucky soldier might survive six weeks before being killed, injured or taken prisoner. Within a few days however, George was transferred to the Headquarters Company 134th where Clem was in charge of the Communications Section. George's linguistic abilities (he spoke six languages) made him a very valuable man for the Headquarters Company. The combat units desperately needed German, Austrian, Hungarian, Polish etc. speakers to translate captured documents and to interrogate the Prisoners of War (POW) as they were brought into the Battalion Headquarters.

There were other trained Interrogators Prisoner of War (IPW) units assigned to the 35th Division but they stayed further back from the front lines at Regimental HQs. There were many Jewish soldiers assigned to these IPW teams because they were fluent in German and the other East European languages. See the book Sons and Soldiers: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned with the U.S. Army to Fight Hitler - Bruce Henderson).

One of the IPW soldiers mentioned in "Sons and Soldiers" was Martin Selling. On November 10th, 1938, the day after Kristallnacht, Martin was arrested by Nazi Storm Troopers at his home in Lehrberg, Germany and was sent to the Dachau Concentration Camp. After being forced to sign away everything that he and his family owned in Germany, and finding a sponsor in the US, he was allowed to leave Dachua and emigrate to the US. When war was declared Martin enlisted in the US Army and was selected to undergo interrogation training before being sent over to Europe to join the 35th Division.

When Martin and his small band of IPW team members first arrived on the shores of Normandy, the front line commanders didn't know what to do with them. They didn't trust the primarily foreign speaking men at first and wanted to assign them to menial duty work. But they soon learned the importance of extracting information from the many German soldiers and translating captured documents which became critical as the fighting became very confused and fiercely fought in Normandy.

Both Martin Selling and George Worth survived the war. At the end of the war when the US was occupying Western Germany, Martin drove back to his hometown in a jeep as an officer in the US Army. News flew fast in his hometown that Martin was back and it must have been a real shock for his old neighbors who assumed he had been "exterminated" in Dachau. Martin also made it a point to tell reluctant German POWs during their interrogations, that he was a Dachau survivor which in some cases scared the hell out of them, as they probably thought he was going to have them executed if they didn't talk.

After the war George Worth realized his dream and joined the US Fencing team and won a Bronze Medal in the 1948 Olympics. George eventually settled in Orangeburg, New York and was active in Orangeburg Fire Department and South Orangetown Ambulance Corps , and later Meals on Wheels until he passed away in 2006.

George Worth's Visa Application to visit Brazil in 1951 (Ancestry.com)

As a side note...the 1948 Olympics in London which George participated in, were called the "Austerity Games" because of the hardship and rationing in the post war world. These were also the first Olympics in twelve years due to the outbreak of WW2. The previous Olympics were held in Berlin in 1936 - which Hitler had used to showcase the physical prowess and superiority of the German Aryan youth. But as fate was kind, Hitler's sprinters were beaten by the African-American runner Jesse Owens who won four gold medals. Germany and Japan were not allowed to participate in the 1948 games and the Soviet Union only sent observers to watch and prepare for the next Olympics.

As a side, side note... the German sprinter that Jesse Owens defeated in the Olympics was named Luz Long. Luz and Jesse kept up correspondence after the games. In his last letter, Long wrote to Owens and asked him to contact his son Karl after the war and tell him about his father and "what times were like when we not separated by war. I am saying—tell him how things can be between men on this earth". (wikipedia)

Luz Long served in the German army and was wounded in the fighting in Italy. He died in a British army hospital few days after being wounded.