By Ken Kreider, BVS Unit 25
I entered the BVS 25th unit on December 1, 1954. After 2 months of orientation, we were asked to list our 3 preferences for assignment. I listed BVS projects in Europe, Falfurrias, Texas, and California.
I was assigned to be a guinea pig for medical research at NIH in Bethesda, MD, and later to the Metabolic Research Unit of the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor.
Because I was a “farm boy” I was then assigned to represent Heifer Project in Germany. When the Hungarian Revolution broke out in 1956, I was transferred to coordinate work of BVSers in Hungarian refugee camps in Austria.
My final assignment was to work with former BVSer Don Murray (Hollywood movie star who co-starred with Marylyn Monroe in “Bus Stop.”) in establishing a home for “hard core” refugees from World War II on the island of Sardinia, Italy.
My nearly three years of BVS experience opened my eyes to the validity of various cultures and opinions. It also taught me to be flexible and adapt to unexpected issues. I could write an essay describing interesting experiences in all of these assignments.
I will only discuss my work as director of the establishing of a new home for World War II refugees in Sardinia. Three refugees from the camp at Aversa, Gregory Roubal from the Soviet Union, Premsyl Nyc from Bohemia, and Anthony Saez Perez from the Spanish Civil War, and I set up housekeeping in a small 2-room cement structure on land which Don’s representative and I had purchased (with Don Murray’s money) from the Italian government. Our job was to prepare the land for irrigation – for farming. Our two rooms (each approx. 9×12 ft) were designated as kitchen (we purchased a two-burner gas hotplate, which we sat on Roubal’s suitcase to cook our spaghetti) and bedroom.
Since we had no electricity we retired at nightfall, sleeping on the concrete floor. I was in the middle, with Roubal to my right and Nyc to my left. Tony slept outside. As we lay there in the darkness one night I kept verbally pushing Nyc as to his background. He had been a cinematographer in his native Bohemia until the Nazis occupied his homeland. “Yes” he finally blurted, “I was a member of the Gestapo. That’s why I always wear a long sleeve shirt – to cover over the identifying tattoo the Nazis burned into my arm.” The small hairs on the back of my head must have stood straight up (laying there in the dark with a Russian to my right and a former Nazi to my left) as I tried to keep a calm voice and ask how that occurred. Imprisoned and tortured, he was given the choice of joining the Nazis or be killed.
This and many other experiences in BVS caused me to decide that instead of returning to our farm, I would go to college – to find out what caused World War II and all that suffering. It eventually led to earning my PhD and retirement after 35 years as a Professor of European History at Elizabethtown College.
After writing this article, Dr. Kreider passed away in October of 2025. Read more about his life in his obituary.
His book about Brethren Service, A Cup of Cold Water, is available from Brethren Press.