Martin Maxwell was born in 1924, in the city of Vienna. He grew up amidst difficult circumstances in the 1930s, when Hitler come to power. On December 31, 1938, Martin and his brother left Austria to go to Great Britain on the Kindertransport. Martin was adopted by a family there. In 1942, he joined the military. Because of his European roots, he was considered an Enemy Alien, and was only allowed to join the Pioneer Corps. On June 5-6, 1944, Martin and his squad participated in the D-day landings. His job was to pilot a glider behind enemy lines and take 3 enemy bridges. Martin was later captured during Operation Market Garden and was sent to a POW camp in Hanover. On May 1st 1945, Martin and the rest of his fellow prisoners were liberated by a British tank battalion, which marked the end of the war for Martin Maxwell.

Martin was interviewed at his business by Crestwood students Brandon Liebman and Adam Wilson.  Since he has participated in this project several times, and in 2012 he was interviewed at Crestwood by Justin Memar, Nick Mennel, Lucas Brum, and Justin Yeung.  In 2016 he visited with Mr. Hawkins, along with Julian Spaziani, Victoria Xu, Spencer Arshinoff and Anthony Radford-Grant.