Julie Orenstein interviewed Carmen Appel about her family and life in Frankfurt and Zurich and her later life in the United States. One side one of the interview tape Carmen details her father’s varied career choices including serving as in an anti-aircraft detachment in Belgium. She discusses the family decision to move to Zurich at the urging of her paternal uncle and her schooling there. Carmen also chats about life after returning to Frankfurt, her marriage, and her eventual departure from Germany in 1938 a day before Kristallnacht happened. On side two of the tape Carmen talks about getting her uncle out of Germany with the aid of a businessman in London. She also details her early jobs in New York after arriving in the United States as well as how she arrived in Dayton and her life with her husband there