Flagg understood that not every childhood was easy. He was born in Germany, orphaned by the age of 10 as the Nazis rose to power.Flagg became a legal translator, founding a translating business as well as a language school. He served as a reading tutor in Milwaukee for 17 years and spoke with school audiences about the Holocaust.
"I had a happy childhood until the Nazis," he said.
At 15, Flagg was sent to England as part of the "Kindertransport," a mission to provide children refuge from Nazi persecution. That was in 1939, just months before the war began.
Flagg tried to join the British Army at 16.
"They said to come back in two years, so I did," he said.
More than 60 years later, war memories were still all too real. Flagg spoke quietly, intensely, his eyes closed as he watched the battles again.
One of those battles was made famous in the movie "A Bridge Too Far."
"I was there, too," he said.
Later, the British military wanted Flagg for his skill with several languages.
"I was privy to the negotiations that led to the surrender of the German forces," Flagg said. "I ended up at the war crimes trials in Hamburg. I was offered a double promotion if I would stay on."
The turning point came when a Nazi captain - a doctor accused of killing children - denied that he had killed that many children.
"I said, 'Keep your promotion, I want to be out of here,' " Flagg recalled.
In 1947, he came to the United States, where his older brothers, Richard and Kenneth, already lived.
Flagg married his wife Marion in 1953; their family includes three sons and grandchildren.
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