From the Holocaust to Hogan's Heroes: The Autobiography of Robert Clary

by Robert Clary

Robert Clary was born Robert Widerman in Paris in 1926, the youngest of fourteen children. He was deported to the Nazi concentration camps in 1942 but miraculously was liberated from Buchenwald in 1945, the only one of thirteen deported family members to survive. At age 22, a song he recorded, "Put Your Shoes on Lucy," became a big hit in the United States. He appeared in Cabaret on Broadway, in motion pictures including The Hindenburg with George C. Scott, and in nightclubs. On television he was well-loved for roles on "The Young and the Restless," "Days of our Lives," and of course, as Corporal Louis Lebeau on "Hogan's Heroes." As a Holocaust survivor, Clary has lectured at high schools, colleges, synagogues, and civic groups throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Autobiography, Holocaust, Memoir, World War II

248 pages, Hardcover

First published November 25, 2001

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 4 out of 5]

May 3, 845am ~~ Review asap.

May 4, 830pm ~~ When I learned in November 2022 about the death of Robert Clary, I was reminded of all those years my brother and I watched the show Hogan's Heroes. The character that Clary played on that show was all I knew about the man, but while reading an article about him I learned of this book and ordered it right away. Took me a bit to get to it, but I am glad I finally did. I now know that Robert Clary was much more than a one-character actor.

Robert Clary sang on the radio and in night clubs, on record albums. He acted on the stage, in movies, even in soap operas. He could dance, he could do comedy. He could paint. And he wrote a gripping memoir that makes the reader appreciate him as a person, not just as a talent.

He tells about his life, how he loved to sing and dance, and was spoiled (being the youngest of 14 children). He began performing professionally when he was quite young, and knew what he wanted to do with his life very early: he would be a star. He loved movies, and drawing and reading. Then the war came along.

It was chilling to read about the neighborhood roundups of Jewish people. Soon enough one of the roundups was for his building. Twelve others in his immediate family were sent directly to Auschwitz. He never saw them again. Clary was sent to two labor camps before ending the war in Buchenwald. The chapter describing this time in his life was horrific. He himself admits that if he had been older and more mature he might not have survived. He felt his own innocence kept him from completely understanding what was happening.

After the camps he talks about how he wanted to simply start over again, and tried never to talk about those years or even think about them. Many years went by before he realized that he needed to talk about what had happened, to try and keep it from ever happening again.

He visited Israel for a Gathering of Survivors, but it was more traumatic for him than he had expected. He began to go to high schools and give talks, and he also recorded an interview for the Shoah Foundation. And all this time, he continued singing, acting, and enjoying life.

Robert Clary was so much more than one character on a weekly show. I am glad I got to know him. I will close with these thoughts from his final chapter:
"I may contradict myself when I say I'm a very realistic person, because, in a way, I'm a dreamer. I want the world to be something it isn't. Why can't a world be without armament and wars; why can't we get along together;. . . Why can't we all get together and do something intelligent and peaceful instead of destroying one another constantly? It's a shame we all want to be superior to others. We're very selfish, jealous, small-minded, and narrow in our thinking. We're wonderful builders ~~ isn't it too bad we have to destroy."

Sometimes I also wonder about Man. I listen to the news and I wonder: is this really the way we are all supposed to be living? I very greatly doubt it. I wish we would all just grow up.

[William Sariego · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a little boy I loved watching Hogan's Heroes, and Lebeau was my favorite character. As I grew older and learned the story behind the remarkable man, my respect only increased. The book was a wonderful read, both depressing and uplifting. If you want to read about WWII outside of the 'trumpet & drums" of military history, this is a good place to start.

[JaNae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hogan’s Heros was a show I remember watching with my dad. I didn’t realize that Robert Clary was a Holocaust survivor until seeing his book.

He talked about his whole life including his time in concentration camps. He didn’t go into minute details but enough to get a good idea of what he went through. He also told of his survival on a death march! He didn’t share his experiences for over 30-years but I’m grateful he finally did. It was different to read about the Holocaust from a Jewish survivor’s perspective.

Thank you Robert Clary for sharing and may we all do our part to ensure a genocide never happens again!

[Stefany · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a time to read this man's life story. He was one of my favorites on Hogan's Heroes! He has lead a most interesting life. His no nonsense first hand account of surviving the holocaust is heart-rending and incredible. These are stories that should never be forgotten. Definitely recommend!

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up we watched Hogan's Heroes and I always liked LeBeau the best. He was energetic and sweet, he sometimes sang and danced, and he seemed to have more spark than most of the other characters. I had no idea then that a) he was actually French, b) he was Jewish or certainly c) that he had been in the concentration camps. I was fascinated by the stories of Paris in the 20s and 30s, and he related the story of his internment very well--not going out of his way to shock or horrify, he just tells it the way it was.

I will admit that when he reached the story of how he started out in showbiz in the US the narrative dragged a bit, but at least he admitted he was very ingenuous. His first recording company took terrible advantage of this, as they did with many US born singers in the 50s.

I applaud his mission to make sure the Holocaust is neither forgotten nor rewritten. I was startled, not to say horrified, to discover a good 10 years ago that many of my high school and college aged students here in Spain knew nothing about it, which has led me to gift at least a dozen copies of The Diary of Anne Frank.

[Tony Gualtieri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This brilliantly structured autobiography is one of the most insightful accounts of the effect of the Holocaust on an individual life that I have read.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a great piece of literature but a very interesting, if brief, memoir by the actor most people would know as LeBeau from Hogan's Heroes.
The book was written 20 years ago, but that doesn't change my feelings of horror at what he experienced during World War II.
A thought I had while reading this tries to draw a parallel between "The Greatest Generation" who served and came back and reported little. At first, Clary, like many others, did not want to recount their years under the Nazis. He slowly realized that if he didn't talk about it, that might open the door for a repetition by those who didn't know.

[WhatShouldIRead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recounts the very interesting - though not always pleasant - life of Robert Clary and his experience growing up in Paris, living through the Holocaust, his ambition in learning to sing and dance and performing theater and finally his stint on Hogan's Heroes and educating children about the horror of the Jews extermination at the hands of the Nazis.

Though some was hard to read, overall I found this book very interesting and educational. Mr. Clary has certainly lead an extraordinary life and I appreciate him writing this book to tell his story. Recommend.

[Linda "The Book Lady" Warner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always liked days live and Clary played doug's friend and watched Hogan heroes

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hogan's Heroes is one of my guilty pleasures. It doesn't get much more ridiculous than a comedy set in a Prisoner of War camp in the middle of Nazi Germany, but I love the show anyway. When my mother mentioned that one of the actors playing a POW, Robert Clary, was a Holocaust survivor, I was curious how anyone could go from a concentration camp to that show. Then I found out he had written an autobiography called From the Holocaust to Hogan's Heroes. I could satisfy my curiosity directly from the horse's mouth, as it were.

Clary is a decent writer, but that is clearly not his primary profession. The narrative style is simple and straight-forward, with a slight stream of consciousness feel. That causes him to get in a few sucker punches. For instance, he is describing his happy childhood in Paris and the nice, but small, apartment building in which his family lived and then almost as an aside throws in that today there is a sign on the front of the building whose English translation would read "In memory of the 112 inhabitants of this house, including 40 young children, deported and dead in German camps in 1942." You know things like that are coming, but since the book is chronological you aren't expecting it quite yet. It is likely that is just the way it is in his mind though: memories of childhood always hit the brick wall of the Holocaust.

The descriptions of his life in the camps are good but not masterpieces. If you want better written or more descriptive first-hand accounts of the atrocities of the work and death camps, they are certainly out there. But that isn't really the point, is it? Every person who survived did so in his or her own way, making every story unique and worth being told. Clary's case is interesting because his later entertainment career is so closely tied to his time in the camps. He survived in part by receiving special treatment for entertaining the guards and even chose his future stage name, he was born Robert Widerman, during roll call at Buchenwald one day.

Most of the second half of the autobiography deals with Clary's struggles in the entertainment world. It is a good read, fun and interesting, and perhaps the best written section, but not really what I went into the book for. He again returns to the themes of the Holocaust in the last two chapters. His discussion of filming Hogan's Heroes is brief. He answers my initial question in a rather perfunctory way (basically saying a Frenchman in a POW camp is so different from a Jew in a concentration camp that the question is moot), but he does at least answer it. The final chapter on revisiting the Holocaust is one of the best in the book. He explains that from the moment he got out of the camp he did his best to never think or speak of his time there. Then in 1980 he watched a documentary about a survivor of Auschwitz who mentioned she felt she had to tell her story now because someday there would be no survivors left and the Holocaust deniers could gain more ground and make it easier for it to happen again. It was only after this that he truly confronted his own emotions concerning what he had endured and he began to speak publicly about his time in the camps and the deaths of those he knew. The buried emotions exposed during this time of his life make me wonder if he would have felt the same doing a Hogan's Heroes type show then as he did previously.

[Cindy Dyson Eitelman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't explain why I didn't love this book, but I did like it, a lot. Mr. Clary has a great memory for details and he relates them well. He doesn't hold back on the feelings and he doesn't try to turn himself into a hero. He simply makes it clear, up front, that he's not one to dwell on the past at the expense of living in the present. In fact, I almost think he would have rather not have to tell about his life in the concentration camps. It was more of a "this needs to be told; people have to know and I'm famous enough that they'll listen to my story," than it was a cathartic "rip this beating heart out of my chest." (That turn of phrase comes from Cheryl Strayed, writing about the time when she had a book stuck in her and it had to come out.)

This autobiography was easy to pick up, hard to put down, and charitable to all--except the Nazis, of course. And if there were a certain lack of soul-searching or a personal need to make sense of it all, I'm the only one who'd miss it.

Good, solid memoir.

[Carolyn Scarcella · Rating 5 out of 5]

The video I'm seeing today is based on Robert Clary's book "From the Holocaust to Hogan's Heroes." You may be familiar with him from his singing and his role as Corporal Louis Lebeau on the hit television show Hogan's Heroes, which ran from 1965 to 1971. My grandparents and mother told me a lot about him, even though I wasn't born yet. He's always that funny, and they claim he's a legend. He is a humorous entertainer who is quite young and attractive. I've occasionally seen him in noon films. I really enjoyed the documentary in general very fascinating. He talks stories about himself, his early years, his family, and his friends, and from what I understand, he was an outstanding performer and entertainer before the war. He detailed the awful conditions he endured at the camp. He survived four different concentration camps. As a result, what happened to his loved ones after the war?

[Eric in Ohio · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an engaging memoir, even if you don’t know or care for the TV show that made its author widely famous. I learned something of the everyday life of an interwar French Jewish family, of the night club / Broadway / and film entertainment business for something-less-than-famous performers in the postwar era, and of one Holocaust survivor’s grappling with memory and testimony. I liked the young Clary’s brush with fame in the form of Charles Trenet, and also the bizarre little anecdote that Richard Nixon was in the audience for his nightclub performance in Dallas on Nov. 21, 1963. I would have liked to have understood more his relationship with his wife, Natalie, but appreciate the life he shared in this quick read.

[Emily Severin]

As someone who has always loved Hogan's Heroes, this book added to how I see the series. He was obviously incredibly talented, and was a good way to come out of a reading slump.

[John Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This fast reading, couple hundred pages personalized the Holocaust through the eyes of a man those of us raised in the 1970’s remembers for other than historical ways. It reminds all of us that those who lived through such horrific times were all around us growing up, although not highlighted. Like with his life, Clary mostly highlighted his spirited career that ranged from coast to coast, from job to job, and being remembered for his longest stint as a prisoner of war in Hogan’s Heroes.

As someone who reads so many books on the Holocaust, this book was different in that it really focused on a family just subjected to the authoritarian government murdering people in a discriminatory, systematic basis. Clary speaks of a simple life in France in a family that happened to be Jewish but whose identity was not through Jewish religion or traditions. He speaks about a childhood – not a Jewish childhood or even a French childhood but the images a child consumes and makes most children feel comfortable and loved. He speaks about his family, boyfriends, and simple pleasures. While his parents were religious, they were lax with him, wanting him to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah, he admitted to being bored in his Jewish studies. When he spent his summers in the country, he would tell his friends that his religion was the “same as yours.”

Yet, in 1941, because he was Jewish, everything changed. His fun in performing was restricted. Soon after, the Nazis, with the full cooperation of the French Government required the registration of all Jews at police stations. Further restrictions were imposed. It was terrifying to read from a youth’s perspective how the French Government participated in busing Jews to confinement, either in forced labor to supply Germany with their war machine or instantly to death. Clary speaks of the unspeakable conditions – lice, cockroaches, bed bugs, and the lack of food. Like with every book on the Holocaust, he speaks about conditions that put him into thinking of food every moment. Sexual urges totally disappeared, even for a teen who certainly had the natural urge before his confinement. Clary’s mission to live is demonstrated by him talking about putting on a show in December 1943, singing and enjoying one another’s company in such horrible conditions.

Clary mentions that their forced labor wasn’t the entire workforce in that Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians, and British prisoners of war were also at the factory but separated from the Jews. It would have been interesting to hear more about the treatment of these other prison laborers through some research but this is a very personal story. As in every other book on the Holocaust, he speaks about the horrifying actions of SS agents, hanging prisoners for minor infractions – and forcing others to witness such killings.

Like others, Clary was sent from camp to camp, forced to walk hundreds of miles, and had absolutely no control of his life. He points out that at the one camp there were other non-Jews who had been held as far back as 1937 for their opposition to Hitler’s control including political activists, underground fighters, communists, Ukrainians, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals. To me, this was especially important since many people who have read this book don’t read or know much about the Holocaust. While many Jews – and others – died while being marched from camp to camp or from starvation in the camps, Cary was able to realize liberation day on April 12. He speaks to the American soldiers who were shocked at seeing those who were wasting away. The prisoners were given food and freedom. Clary says that many of his fellow political prisoners died from overeating after such treatment.

It was also important that the author shared about a few countries that pushed back on the Nazis in the mass execution of Jews. He speaks to Bulgarian government limiting exportation of Jews for those who were citizens, Italy held back on transporting Jews to the gas chambers until nearly the end of the war, and Denmark – with so few Jews – saved their 7,500 Jews for their total refusal to send these people to death. Again, this is important since many who have read this book did so because of the author’s fame and not because of the key issue outlining this book.

But freedom wasn’t for long. After making it back to Paris, Clary learned that he was being drafted into the military for two years. He was nineteen years old and ready to be pulled into service. Only after the officials saw that he had documentation that he had spent 31-months in German concentration camps, was he relieved of the forced duty.

Most of the rest of the book speaks about his exploring career in France and in Europe. He gives his defense of using blackface, explaining that blacks were not treated in France as he later learned of the discrimination in America. His first break comes when a musicians strike in 1947 allowed him to perform in France. The lead to his trip to America, despite his limited English. It was fun hearing about his exploration of New York – Times Square, the Copacabana Club, hearing the Duke Ellington orchestra, seeing a Broadway show then heading out to Hollywood and finding an apartment larger than he had in his life behind Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

His career had starts and stops but Eddie Cantor “opened doors” for him, something I remember my mom saying about this short actor. He developed a relationship with Merv Griffin before his own fame, sharing a hotel room to save money. He had a popular Broadway show and then played big supper clubs in New York City. Yes, the 1950’s. He played in a few movies with big stars and then in Los Angeles at the Moulin Rouge. He played in San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, and even Canada. He became a citizen. Strangely he was in Dallas on the day President Kennedy was assassinated speaking that the night before a large group of Pepsi Cola employees, including their lawyer, future president Richard Nixon, was at a performance the night before. But, after the assassination, the club closed and even when it opened, he said he often performed his act for no more than ten people.

Clearly the highlight of his career was Hogan Heroes, starting in 1965 and lasting for six years, the longest work of his career. He speaks to his growing role, the camaraderie of the cast and how he fell in love during this time and married Natalie, his life-time mate.

Closing off the book, Clary speaks to going to Israel for the first time in 1981 for a Holocaust survivors’ event. He later spoke out for the first time of his own experiences. And Clary pointed out that keeping the memory alive was going to be tougher in decades to come because less then no survivors would be able to give their personal experience. We see that today with the increase attacks on Jews, especially in Europe but also in our own country.

[Annie Drewello · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally intrigued as a high schooler in love with "Hogan's Heroes", I was glad I was able to revisit this as an adult. A beautiful and moving story from start to finish, it was an quick read that I wasn't able to put down and therefore finished it in a day. It gave a different view of Holocaust Literature than I've read before. Clary didn't hold back in any of his descriptions, but was tasteful and sensitive through the entire book. His narrative voice is very straight to the point which may turn some readers off. I thought it worked for him. His recounting of his time in Jewish Concentration Camps and especially his visit to the Holocaust memorials in Israel as an adult were very moving. His journey from a small child with Oversized dreams to a success performer was endearing with just the right amount of humor. He was positive with his views on who he had worked with in the past, which was good to see as its so easy to see autobiographies rip former co-stars to shreds.

Sometimes the ideas jump during the telling of Robert Clary's life story, like if he was in the middle of telling you one thing, he would be reminded of something or wanted to clarify or expand on it and would jump so it wasn't always 100% chronological. However his train of thought was easy to follow. This way it felt like an intimate conversation.

I very much enjoyed this book and loved that his personality really came through in his narration.

[Leila Kern · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up one of my favorite shows was Hogan's Heros so I was very interested in reading Mr. Clary's book. While Mr. Clary is not a professional writer, I felt he wrote with passion and very clearly about his experiences. I admire that he does not just sit back and remain quiet with "historians" glossing over the holocaust! The world needs to know about the injustice especially now with the same actions being played out amongst others.

[Martha Bode · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robert Clary had an Interesting journey from Paris childhood to retirement in California via the horror of concentration camps. I continue to be amazed at holocaust deniers when there are books and bios like this with detailed accounts. We should never forget - and Mr Clary has made it a mission to share this history as a speaker and author.

The book was fine —-but it could have used a sharp eyed editor as there some typos in the text, which is a shame.

[Sally N. Inglis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous read!

[Amber Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

My husband and I love this show. While some people think a comedy about Nazis is in bad taste, I think since the Nazis lose every time, become buffoons and the men of the camp (a POW camp NOT concentration!) run circles around them as they defeat them with ease, it really isn't.
Corporal LaBeau is one of the best characters of the show. I was aware that he and ALL of the actors playing Nazis (with the understanding the Nazis would ALWAYS lose) were Jewish and I was dimly aware Clary had been in a concentration camp.
Clary's narrative style is a bit stream of conciousness and a bit unpolished. You can tell he is not a native English speaker and a little inexperienced writing....but after a while, I started to sort of hear him speak with the voice and accent I knew from the show and oddly, it made me feel like I was sitting with him listening to him talk. If only he could have read this for an audiobook!!!!
He says that his innocence protected him from the full horrors he was going through and that his survival was sometimes from the protection of friends, from the people he entertained in the camps and from pure luck. He was indeed fortunate in the camps he was sent to as he wasn't sent to a death camp or one where typhus was raging.
I don't think he really dealt with the fallout of his experiences until he attended the gathering in Israel where the full force of it all sort of hit him. I think his generation was told to just put it behind them, bury it, hide it, forget about what happened. The realization that his generation was fading away and that anyone could say anything about the Holocaust they wanted was (I think) striking to him, that his own silence about the horrors he endured was letting his experiences die with him.
He said he never saw what he did as brave, it was just surviving. He didn't even see speaking up, sharing these painful and raw experiences as brave--they were. The writing of this biography and his talks must have dredged up a lot of pain and suffering for him. Bless him. Even a "lucky" life in the camps sounds traumatizing in the extreme.
I was interested to find out what else he did in life--nightclub entertainer, soap opera actor, painter and loving husband. He never got really famous as a singer or found fame beyond Hogan's Heroes, but it sounds like he lived life to the fullest and never succumbed to hate, fear or depression. Art Spiegelman and his family were twisted and broken by the camps, but Clary seems to have kept his spirit to an amazing degree protected and intact.
The one and only thing I didn't get answers on was his height....I always wondered if his height was just genetic or his height was stunted by the camps. Ah well, silly thing to wonder about.

Worthwhile read and a fascinating record of someone who survived, thived and inspired!

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who knew that "little LeBeau" from Hogan's Heroes had such a back story? And how did someone who survived 31 months as a teenager in Nazi concentration camps rally enough to portray the good-humored Frenchman LeBeau for six years in a sitcom about Allied POWs? Well, Robert Clary defied a lot of odds in his life--and even though he "buried" his Holocaust experiences for over three decades before becoming a survivor who gave a lot of himself to educating students and speaking out about the horrors against humanity perpetrated by the Nazis, it is clear that those 31 months nevertheless defined Clary's subsequent life in many ways. Clary had a happy childhood with a loving Jewish family in Paris, even though his LARGE family didn't have a lot of money. His skills as a singer and entertainer became evident early in his life, even before he was five, and as a child he enjoyed a fair amount of success in local and regional theatrical and musical circles. Characteristics that no doubt contributed to his survival of the Holocaust horrors included an irrepressible personality, persistence, a sense of humor, general good health and a mostly positive outlook on life. I will spare you the details of his Holocaust experience, but suffice to say he survived the "full meal deal" of it all. Reading his relatively matter-of-fact accounting, I was again struck by the senselessness of it all, and by the absurdity of one group or country deciding that another group of people deserves to suffer and die. Clary's plucky attitude and inherent talents eventually led him to the United States, where he lived the remainder of his long (he lived to age 96) life. Success? His career had ups and downs, and despite a lot of time spent entertaining at clubs and theaters, he will no doubt be forever known for his Hogan's Heroes turn (and maybe, for some, also for his "Days of Our Lives" years). One can't help but admire Clary's persistence and courage. When he relates the tale of his journey to Israel in the early 1980s with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, his emotional release is not surprising; even a casual reader could see he had kept a lot of things bottled and boxed up in compartments he didn't want to open for decades. While that is completely understandable, it was good to know that Clary spent the latter decades of his life sharing his survivor story and pushing back against the forces of evil.

[Lee McKerracher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like many people, I knew Robert Clary as Lebeau from Hogan's Heroes - the funny, romantic Frenchman working with Hogan and the others to outwit and annoy Klinck and Schultz.

I had no idea that Robert Clary had survived Holocaust concentration camps during WWII, was a nightclub singer and a very accomplished painter. This is a very honest account of his life growing up in Paris in an overcrowded apartment on Ile Saint Louis as part of a poor Jewish family. He admits he was the darling of the family and managed to get as spoilt as they could afford.

Reading about the deportation of 12 members of his family plus himself, the selection process that sealed the fate of his parents and how he survived 31 months in captivity at three different camps was quite raw. His talent for entertaining was honed in the camps and may have saved him on many occasions as he at times, managed to get extra morsels of food or soup.

He was the only one of his family that was deported who survived and once he was freed and back in Paris he was determined to be a successful entertainer. The book covers his journeys around France in many nightclubs trying to get a break. He goes to the USA with mixed success and when finally, due to a bit of luck, he is cast in Hogan's Heroes, he finally makes the 'big time'.

Robert Clary writes about both his successes and where he sees he has failed. The account of a visit to Israel for a Gathering of Holocaust survivors is heart wrenching. After this, he starts giving talks to students, churches, clubs etc about what it means to be a survivor and to educate as many as possible so this type of atrocity never happens again.

An eye opening book that I found hard to put down.

[Anne Mcarthur · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be the last book I read in 2016, and maybe one of the best. Growing up, I was a massive Hogan's Heroes fan...we watched all the reruns. I now live in France and it's been a turbulent year with terrorist attacks, a growing extreme right-wing and an on-going state-of-emergency. There is, and has been for a long time, underlying racism in France that has helped to grow a significant community of locally grown Islamic extremists. This little book is about a short Jewish Frenchman growing up in Paris, who is reported by his neighbors to the French police, is sent to a concentration camp, lost most of his family and who went on to have a successful musical and television career (on Hogan's Heroes, bien sur) is very timely. It is the story of a talented kid, a Holocaust survivor and a refugee. It is a compact, intense and powerful book written in a simple, bouncy prose and it feels like you are talking to Lebeau himself. At the end of the book, after he meets up with other Holocaust survivors, you feel Clary's pain of having hidden his trauma behind his jolly Frenchman personna. Amazing story.

[Cindy Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read many of the reviews for this book. So many of the readers are like me. I was a kid when I first saw Robert Clary on Hogan’s Heroes. That was all that I had known of him. Years later, thanks to the internet, I was watching some videos on YouTube. Among those were clips from Hogan’s Heroes. It was then that I saw Mr. Clary’s Shoah interview about being a Holocaust survivor. That’s when I went in search for this book.
I am very moved after reading it. Before this, the only book about the Holocaust that I had read was The Diary of Anne Frank and also a couple of books by people who knew Anne.
This book hit me the hardest.
Robert Clary wanted to be an entertainer ever since he was a young child. That stayed with him even during his 31 months in concentration camps. I believe that is one of the reasons he survived. Unfortunately, I cannot explain why I feel this way.
I do know that if you want to read about the life of someone who survived such tragedy and then felt his mission was to spread the word about it, then this book is for you.

[Stef O'connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all let me say I have read some of the reviews of this book where the reviewer has complained about the writing style. I doubt Robert Clary would consider himself an author but an entertainer with an important story to tell. The first part of the book deals with his childhood then into the war and his memories of the concentration camps he was in. To me, it came across as something that Robert didn’t want to remember but felt that it needed to be told. The second part of the book is his struggles and subsequent success in the entertainment industry. This part was far easier to read as it was a more joyful time. The last two chapters are again about the Holocaust but in more recent times remembering, teaching, and hopefully accepting the sorrow and anguish instead of hiding it. A book, a story, which made me reflect on the past and how history, good or bad, should never be forgotten

[Karen Szyszko · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been decades since I have read an autobiography/biography. Because I am such a devotee to the Hogan's Heroes series, I was given Robert Clary's book to read. I'm glad I read the book. It is written in such an intimate way that it feels like Mr. Clary is personally telling his story to the individual reader alone. I'm left feeling amazed, awed and impressed by this man's resilience in surviving the camps. He found an inner strength that allowed him to use his intellect, ingenuity and stature to, basically, outwit the Nazis. I'm also humbled at his ability to start anew after being "left to die" as the war reached its conclusion. Mr. Clary, there are no words to express the deep emotion that your book inspires. May God bless you always.

[Theresa M. Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a beautiful story of Robert’s family life in Paris before the murderers from the hitler devils disrupted, ruined, and killed so many wonderful families including some of my own Jewish ancestors from Germany to Robert’s time in the horrific Holocaust camps, surviving and his release after 3 ish years. His career in acting was fascinating! One role after another! Robert was so talented and so successful. After years an acting career, Robert’s realization of his guilt and being so thankful for surviving and thriving through his many years after WWII I truly felt it all deep in my soul! I enjoyed Robert’s book so much and highly recommend it. I look forward to reading his sister’s book next!!!

[Freyja Vanadis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hogan's Heroes is one of my all time favorite TV shows, which is why I wanted to read an autobiography about one of its stars. But it wasn't as good as I had expected it to be. For one thing, if he did use an editor, he should have gotten a better one who would fix the spelling mistakes. Also, he wasn't very subtle with the name dropping he does. And he seems to suffer from the typical short man syndrome, having an outsize ego and personality. Still, it was an entertaining read, and I learned a lot about an actor I knew almost nothing about except that he was French and had survived the concentration camps.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Clary has much to share in his autobiography

Robert Clark has written a wonderful biography. I really enjoyed his stories about growing up in Paris before World War 2 as well as his singing, stage, and television careers and the places he's visited. His accounts of his time in the concentration camps and the anti semi risk he encountered as well as his account of visiting Israel in later years and his volunteer work to educate people is very moving and eye opening. I also enjoyed his stories about Hogan' s Heroes as well as different people he worked with in show business. This book is a good mixture of happiness and sadness. I highly recommend it.

[Mary Rude · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is written in a very simple, straight-forward style. No fancy language here. But Clary's story is incredible. I grew up watching reruns of Hogan's Heroes, and I had no idea Clary had been through such an ordeal during the war. I really admire him for his extreme honesty about what he went through, as well as his feelings about it afterwards. He really seems like a kind and humble person who is to be admired for not just surviving the camps, but then pushing through his own pain and discomfort to speak about it at schools across America.