The GJCA was based in the United States, but importantly it also had many personnel in Europe, primarily in Germany.
In an exclusive interview with journalist David Leighton, published in the Arizona Daily Star newspaper, on May 13, 2014, he told his story: Zimmt and his twin brother were born to a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany.
After Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the inception of his anti-Semitic policies, his parents, fearing for their sons lives, worked with the German-Jewish Children's Aid to quietly move them to safety in the United States.
The twins arrived in the U.S. in 1935, and after a short time in an orphanage in New York, were moved to Chicago, where they lived with a foster family for a few years.
When the U.S. entered World War II, he volunteered to serve in the U.S. Marines, but was rejected because he was considered an enemy alien due to his German heritage.
"He had the dangerous job of manning listening posts in front of the main line and sending back intelligence to headquarters or going on reconnaissance patrols.