Orange County Register

Curt Lowens. Image courtesy of the Jewish Journal

Actor Curt Lowens, a long-time Chapman University donor who survived the Holocaust and helped save Jewish children during World War II, will portray a former Nazi officer during this week’s episode of the ABC-TV series, “Fast Foward,” scheduled to air on Thursday night.

Lowens, 83, plays an imprisoned Nazi who claims to have  knowledge of why “the entire world saw a vision of its future.”

Oddly, it will be a familiar experience for Lowens, who has appeared in such movies as “Angels and Demons” and on the TV series, “Cold Case,” “ER,” and “Night Court.

“My first acting job after World War II was on Broadway in ‘Stalag 17,’ in which I played a Nazi guard,” says Lowens, who has donated many of his personal effects from the war era to Chapman’s  Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education.

“I have been playing Nazis ever since. They have included bad guys, fair soldiers, very nasty SS officers — and Dr. Mengele. It’s been very rewarding for me because it it serves as a remembrance of what happened.”

Asked whether the roles evoked any particularly dark memories, Lowens said, “There have been moments when I walked behind barbed wire. That brings back memories of having been in a (concentration) camp in Holland. But I always think that I was lucky just to survive and talk about this.”

In addition to surviving life in a concentration camp during World War II, Lowens, who now lives in Los Angeles, also lived through Kristallnacht, or, “The Night of Broken Glass.” Kristallnacht was a period in which the Germans rounded up thousands of Jews and sent them to concentration camps, and destroyed their property.

Lowens kept many artifacts and memorabilia from this dark era in history, and later donated much of it to Chapman. He will visit campus on Nov. 13 for a remembrance of Krillstallnacht at the university’s Wallace All Faiths Chapel.

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