Surname: Kopold

Born: 21 December 1915

Place of Birth: Ebenhausen
 Ebenhausen is a little village in Bavaria which is situated south of the town of Ingolstadt on the road towards Munich.

Family: Gabriel Kopold’s father (Johann Kopold) was a little farmer, who before and during the war also got a job in the Heereszeugamt (Army Arsenal) in Ingolstadt and in the Heeresmunitionsanstalt (Army Ammunition Plant) which was situated near their home village. For his merits during his duty in these army installations he was awarded the non-combatants version of the Verdienst-Medaille of the Kriegsverdienstkreuz (A medal for meritorious contributions to the war effort).

 Gabriel Kopolds mother (Viktoria Kopold) gave birth to 9 children (6 boys and 3 girls). One of Gabriel’s sisters (Cilli) died as a newborn baby and one of his brothers (Christian) died at age two, when he fell into a little stream near their village.

 When Gabriel left school about 1929, Germany was in a terrible economical situation experiencing a rate of unemployment well over 20%. Thus, Gabriel only occasionally got work at farms near his home village and at road construction sites.

 For this service he and some of his friends had been detached to an Reichsarbeitsdienstlager in Oschatz, a town in Saxony. For most of them this was the first time that they had been outside Bavaria.

 He later - with disgust - told that it was in Saxony that for the first time he was to eat herring with potatoes rather than pork and dumplings.