Baer was born in 1922 to Lotte ( Kirschbaum ) and Leo Baer , a Jewish family living in Germany , and was originally named Rudolf Heinrich Baer . At age 14 , he was expelled from school because of his ancestry and had to go to an all-Jewish school . His father worked in a shoe factory in Pirmasens at the time . Baer 's family , fearing increasing persecution , moved from Germany to New York City in 1938 two months prior to Kristallnacht while Baer was a teenager . Baer would later become a naturalized United States citizen
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Ralph H. Baer