As an international marketing executive for Citgo, Gary Pollex traveled to 142 countries during the 23 years he worked for the oil company. As he experienced many exotic locales, he was plagued by a recurring nightmare from his childhood.

In 1943, the 74-year-old said, "I was taken into hiding from the Nazis by the monks at a Benedictine monastery in Poland. There were 11 of us children, and for two years we hid in a wine cellar.

"During that time we never saw any daylight. It was cold and damp, and we had very little to eat. Only four of us survived; the other children died of malnutrition, pneumonia or just plain sadness."

Pollex, who was born in Berlin in 1934 to a Jewish mother and Christian father, was eventually rescued by the Russian army. According to Pollex, who had been reduced to skin and bones during his time in hiding, it took more than a year for his family to be reunited after the American-led liberation began in 1945. His mother had been sent to Dachau,
10 miles northwest of Munich, where 30,000 people were imprisoned. His father was sent to a labor camp, where he worked detonating enemy bombs. The rest of his large extended family, including his grandparents, uncles and aunts, were killed at various Nazi concentration camps.

"While I was in hiding, I befriended this little girl who thought of me as an older brother. She died in my arms. I was so upset that I became hysterical. It took four monks to pry me away from her body, and they had to sedate me. I still have dreams about that little girl," Pollex says.

After the war, the Pollex family sought refuge in the United States, making their way through Ellis Island and settling in New Jersey. "In Germany, my father had been an attorney, but since he couldn't speak English, he became a chicken farmer. But that didn't seem to bother him — every day he kissed the ground, he was so grateful to be here," Pollex says.

Pollex got a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1957. While at the university, he became a member of the ROTC and upon graduation served in the Army as a second lieutenant, eventually rising to the rank of captain. Since Pollex is fluent in six languages, he was stationed in Europe from 1958-1962, where he worked in the counter-intelligence corps, hunting down former Nazis. "Our job was to track them down and bring them to the attention of the Israeli government," he says.

During his second tour in the military in 1966, he was sent on a counter-intelligence assignment to Vietnam, where he worked to identify members of the Viet Cong.

Returning from Vietnam, Pollex was faced with the death of his wife from breast cancer and the responsibility of raising his daughter on his own. His daughter, Valerie, who speaks seven languages, works part-time as an interpreter at the United Nations and has blessed Pollex with two grandchildren.

While living in New York in the 1970s, Pollex became a part-time music consultant for the now defunct Tower Records, thanks to one of his neighbors on Jane Street in Greenwich Village, who recognized his affinity for classical music.

"Leonard Bernstein lived in my building, and when he'd walk past my apartment he would hear the music that I was playing," Pollex recalls. "One day we got to talking in the elevator, and he was amazed that I knew so much, not only about the different composers but the musicians as well. I told him that I fell in love with classical music while stationed in Munich as a soldier, when the city would provide free tickets to the military to the Munich Opera. It was around this time that the manager at Tower Records at Lincoln Center noticed that I was always hanging around the classical music section. We got to talking and I told him what Bernstein had said to me, and he asked me if I wanted to work as a consultant at night and on weekends, advising customers."

During his tenure at Tower Records, Pollex amassed a collection of 16,000 compact discs of both popular and obscure composers. "I was able to sell 11,000 of my CDs before I moved to Santa Fe, but I'm still trying to fit some of the CDs into my apartment and sell the rest," he says.

The Santa Fe Opera is what compelled Pollex to move to RainbowVision Retirement Community last year. He was familiar with the town, since he and his family used to come to Santa Fe on skiing and camping trips in the 1960s. As Pollex says, "For its size, Santa Fe has a lot of culture. Where else can you be camping in the Pecos Wilderness and an hour later be at the opera? This summer there's going to be a production of Verdi's La traviata. Unlike most operas that have a silly story but good music, traviata has both a good story and wonderful music. In my opinion, it's one opera you don't want to miss."

Ana Pacheco is the founder and publisher of La Herencia, a culture and history magazine (www.herencia.com, 505-474-2800.) Her weekly tribute to our community elders appears every Tuesday.