Teaching History Matters

I am reposting this. Ariela called me tonight to tell me that she is coming to the reunion with her cousin, who is also a survivor. This footage is from the 2009 conference. On the phone this evening she told me that I felt like a son to her. What she does not know is that she and my mom, who passed away five years ago, share the same birthyear…

I was born in Poland, where I spent time in the ghetto and a prison. I then spent two years in Bergen-Belsen.
When told to prepare ourselves for the departure in the train I was already very weak and sick. Two weeks prior I had very high fever. I was with my aunt, my father’s sister, as by then I had lost my entire family.
The Germans let us know that all those who could not walk would have to stay behind. My aunt wanted to stay because she knew that I was already very weak; however, I insisted on going. I said to my aunt, “You know that they kill the weak and the sick. We will go with the healthy people.” Although I was only 11½ years old, my aunt listened to me. I probably had a very strong will to live.
Although this might not be relevant, I would like to tell it anyway:
Before we left, they gave each of us a raw potato, and somehow we managed to bake them over wood. My aunt then said to me, “You know that now is the Passover holiday” – we barely remembered what day of the week it was, let alone the date. “On Passover, according to the story, our forefather Moses took us out of Egypt. Maybe G-d is bringing us to freedom, and maybe we will live.”
We walked a few kilometres to the train, and out of weakness we dropped most of the things that we still had with us. We reached the first car in the train, and there were a few women who saved us a spot. The train slowly moved but stopped every few kilometres because the tracks were destroyed from the bombings.
In one of the stations we saw a cargo train carrying beets. A good friend of mine convinced me to go steal the beets, and with my last strength I went. (I am actually still in touch with her today. Her and her brother are in the same picture as me, and she is the one who confirmed that I am the girl sitting on my knees on the right side of the picture). The beets tasted like the Garden of Eden, and my aunt said they tasted like melon. Of course, I didn’t remember how melon tasted.
The train continued to some place and stopped – on one side there was a forest and on the other side the Elba River. I remember the place exactly as it looks in Dr. Gross’s photograph.
After awhile, some Germans rode by on bicycles, and when they heard it was a train full of Jews they ordered the German guards to kill us. In the meantime, American planes flew low above us and apparently took pictures that showed people and children. The German guards that were still there to watch over us started to shoot with machine guns at the planes. Our people asked them to stop shooting, but they refused. We got off the train and hid under the wheels.
I would now like to add something personal. My aunt sat with me under the wheels and took out a little notebook that contained the names and addresses of our relatives in America. She told me to learn all of this by heart because you never know who the bullet will hit – and when the war would end I should contact these relatives and ask them to take me in. I listened to her and learned everything by heart. Until today, I remember some of these names and addresses.
As you know, the Germans didn’t get a chance to kill us, and you, the American angels, came on time. The children started to run to the small village to ask for food, and again my good friend dragged me with her and we managed to get some milk and bread.
After a day or two, the American army asked us to get on trucks and go to a village called Hillersleben. We were all afraid because we had learned from the past that every transport means death. In the end, they found a Jewish American soldier who announced in Yiddish over the loudspeaker that we had nothing to be afraid of and that we would be moving to nice and clean houses. And this is how the chapter of the train ended. But for me, on a personal note, my story continued…
I want to point out that in 1995 I went with my husband to Bergen-Belsen for the 50th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. From there we went to Hillersleben. The place looked very different from what I remembered, probably as a result of the Russian influence for 50 years. We managed to find a Jewish monument in the yard of a church. On it was written: In memory of 138 Jewish survivors of Bergen-Belsen.

With regards,

Ariela R.
Toronto, Ontario
Canada

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Oscar Muller, who was held in three different concentration camps during World War II, sailed from Belgium to the U.S. after he was liberated in 1945. New York City is pictured in the background.

This article appeared in the GF Post Star on August 22. Mr. Muller was liberated on this train near Magdeburg. Ironically one of his liberators, Carrol Walsh,  lived 5 minutes away, but they were never able to meet. What are the odds, but then, there are no coincidences. I’ll post more on his life later.

BY Meg Hagerty, Features writer

As a young man, Oscar Muller knew when trouble was brewing in the Janowska concentration camp in the Lvov ghetto of Poland. Whenever the Nazis planned to round up Jews and lead them to their death as part of a “selection,” Oscar was forewarned by a premonition — the screech of a train whistle that blared in his head.

He’d frantically seek refuge by holing up in a nearby attic or cellar, or fleeing over a fence until the danger had passed. Then he’d go about foraging for scraps of food.

It was all part of just trying to survive during the horrific years of the Holocaust.

Oscar, of Glens Falls, died July 31 at the age of 103.

The youngest of eight children, he was studying architecture in his native Poland in 1939 when the Soviets forced him and his family out of their spacious apartment. As bad as it was to be occupied by the Russians, life for the Jews became worse when the Germans invaded.

The terror started in 1942, Oscar stated in a diary about his life during the Nazi occupation.

“The old and sick were taken to the outskirts of the city, killed and burned to make room for more,” he wrote. “Women and children were sent to Belzec where elaborate places were built to kill them by pumping gas. This made it possible to kill lots of people quickly.”

Joy Muller-McCoola, Oscar’s daughter, said her father watched most of his family, save for one brother, be murdered by the Germans.

Oscar, however, never doubted he would be able to survive the atrocities.

“He was incredibly optimistic,” Joy said.

Oscar was imprisoned at three different death camps and did what was necessary to stay useful to his captors, but would never submit to being a “policeman” for the Nazis, mornitoring the movements of other Jews.

At Bergen-Belsen in northwestern Germany, Oscar reported to an “oberstrumfuhrer,” who ordered that he keep track of the prisoners who were either sick or dead.

Joy believed it was because her father had training in architectural lettering and numbering that he was kept alive.

Oscar also tried to keep peace among the 100 starving prisoners held in the crude barracks at Bergen-Belsen by cobbling together a scale out of two pieces of cardboard, string and a piece of wood to weigh out the one slice of bread allowed per person each day.

A young boy who was held at the concentration camp remembered Oscar making the scale and later, when Martin Spett became an adult and made his way to the United States, he became an artist who painted vivid memories from the Holocaust, One work in Martin’s “Reflections of the Soul” — a collection of his pieces — shows a man cutting a very thin slice of bread surrounded by a gaunt-looking crowd of prisoners. Oscar was the younger man weighing the bread on the primitive scale.

To keep the prisoners’ minds active, Oscar made a chess set out of scraps of wood.

He also scrounged for food to feed a starving rabbi, making off with scraps while carrying kettles back to the kitchen. Joy said at first her father felt guilty for having stolen, but the rabbi convinced him otherwise.

“They stole our lives from us; we’re just doing what we can to get those back,” Joy said her father was told. “Afterward, he was proud to have done that.”

Not surprisingly, Oscar’s life was forever shaped by the events of the Holocaust, as were the lives of his children and grandchildren.

Oscar was a gifted photographer who appreciated beauty, said his son, Dan; he was also known as “the man with the golden hands,” replicating anything after looking at it just once.

After Oscar was freed from the concentration camps, he sailed to New York from Belgium in 1949. He regularly rode the subway into Manhattan looking for work and met someone who made handbags. He went to a couple of interviews, saw what the designers were doing and drew up a portfolio, which he then turned into a long career as a one-of-a-kind handbag designer.

Oscar crafted furniture for himself and his wife, Lily, in their Bronx apartment, including cupboards with broomstick handles and a daybed with storage compartments.

“He knew how to design things to stuff things away in a very small place,” Dan said. “Everything he designed, even though it was to store tools or to put linens in, they always had beautiful lines.”

“Any of those pieces could have been in the Museum of Modern Art’s design collection and it would have looked fine because that’s what he did,” Joy added.

Oscar also worked through some of the “damage” from his death camp experience with his three-dimensional art. One particular piece hangs on the wall in Joy’s Glens Falls home.

It is a square picture with cage-like bars made of nails around the perimeter, and a broken eggshell and human eyeball painted in the center. Dan and Joy interpreted the art to mean that their spunky father watched himself build a new life after breaking free of the bonds that once held him.

“He was resilient,” Joy said.

Copyright 2011 The Post-Star. All rights reserved.
Read more: http://poststar.com/news/local/after-surviving-holocaust-glens-falls-man-lived-to/article_3b24d02c-cc3b-11e0-8978-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz1Vo24LOzL

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2011 American Soldiers-Holocaust Survivors Symposium and Reunion

Hudson Falls High School, Hudson Falls, New York

September 20-23, 2011

Three weeks before the end of World War II in Europe, on the morning of Friday, April 13^th, 1945, the 30^th Infantry Division and attached units were fighting their way eastward in the final drive through central Germany toward the Elbe River. A small task force was formed to investigate a train that had been hastily abandoned by German soldiers near the town of Magdeburg, Germany. The boxcars were filled with Jewish families that had survived the infamous concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen and were now being transported away from the advancing Allies to another death camp location. Scores of children were among the prisoners. Two weeks later, Soviet troops liberated a second train transport from Belsen.

In 2001, as part of a class project collecting the testimony of World War II veterans, Mr. Matthew Rozell, a teacher at Hudson Falls High School, interviewed one of his student’s grandparents, a tank commander who told him this story. This long forgotten event was about to spring to life. Holocaust survivors all over the world who had been children aboard the death train began to find their rescuers’ narratives and even the photographs of the day of their liberation near Magdeburg in 1945 on this oral history website, www.hfcsd.org/ww2, produced by Mr. Rozell and his students. Mr. Rozell created a second website, www.teachinghistorymatters.com, devoted to collecting these testimonies and recording the unfolding organic nature of this reconnection of survivors and liberators.

Today, over 200 living survivors of this train have been located, and now have the opportunity to get together with the soldiers who freed them 66 years ago.

Our 2011 theme is “Repairing the World”. The trauma of the Holocaust and of World War II left its mark on the survivors and soldiers of WWII; this will also be an occasion to remember the sacrifices of the veterans of all wars.   In sharing stories, participants have the opportunity to help heal the world, in the Jewish tradition of tikkun olam. The primary focus of the conference will be on education; it will be witnessed by as many as 1500 students and thousands more via a live feed on our school website, and it will be recorded for educational purposes. In 2009, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Bergen Belsen Memorial in Germany sent representatives, and this year will be invited again; researchers from the National World War II Museum in New Orleans may be here as well.

In addition, a book fair and photographic exhibition will be held with several authors in attendance, speaking and signing their books.  Major news organizations are expected to cover the event, and it is hoped that a documentary film crew will also be here.

Our high school facilities are “state of the art”, and our auditorium is air conditioned, just a scenic 15-20 minute ride away from hotels at the most beautiful time of the year.

Tuesday, the welcoming reception and dinner will be held at the Six Flags Great Escape Lodge Resort (www.sixflagsgreatescapelodge.com). On Wednesday morning, we will have a welcoming breakfast for you with students and school officials at a restaurant near the school. Lunches will be catered between programs at the school, on Wednesday evening, the Lake George Steamboat Company (www.lakegeorgesteamboat.com) has again generously agreed to custom charter a welcoming dinner cruise for our students, soldiers and survivors and our sponsors. Following Thursday’s school program, dinner will be held at the Six Flags Great Escape Lodge Resort; the concluding activity after Friday’s school program will be the final banquet at the Dunham’s Bay Resort (http://www.dunhamsbay.com).

The Adirondack Balloon Festival (www.adirondackballoonfest.org) is the same week, and should also provide quite a spectacle.

You may email me at marozell@gmail.com for a reunion registration form and a hotel reservation information sheet. Shuttle service is available to and from Albany International Airport (ALB), about an hour south just down I-87, the Adirondack Northway. It is highly recommended that you make your reservations as soon as possible to guarantee your places; rooms now being held will be released after 8/20.  With the ADK Balloon Festival the same week, hotels are filling fast; cancellations can be made later, if necessary.

Please join us for this final reunion/educational symposium.

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Spaghetti & Meatball Dinner at the
Fort Edward Fire Department
116 Broadway, Fort Edward, NY
JULY 24, 2011
4:00-7:00 PM
Take Outs Available
6:00 Talk by Matthew Rozell
Completing the Circle: Honoring Liberation and Defeating the Legacy of Hitler-Reuniting 200 Holocaust survivors with their US Army liberators 65 years later.
Matthew Rozell, a Hudson Falls High School (New York) history teacher and Rogers Island Heritage Development Alliance board member, became a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Teacher Fellow in 2008. Established in 1996, The Museum Teacher Fellowship program trains and maintains a national corps of skilled secondary teachers who serve as leaders in Holocaust education. Through his ongoing work, Mr. Rozell has reunited the living American soldiers with a train transport of Holocaust survivors whom they liberated in Nazi Germany on April 13th, 1945, literally moments before execution.

Matt Rozell, survivor Bruria's son, Frank Towers, two survivors Bruria Falik (of Woodstock, NY) and her sister at Israel's Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem.

To date, over 200 child survivors from all over the world have reconnected with each other and their American liberators in seven reunions which have been highly emotional, cathartic, and healing. For this, Mr. Rozell and his students were named ABC World News “Person of the Week” in September, 2009.
In 2010, Mr. Rozell was selected as the National Organization of American Historians’ American History Teacher of the Year, and he was also the only teacher in the nation invited to participate in the National Days of Remembrance ceremonies in the Capitol Rotunda with General David Petraeus and 171 World War II American soldier liberators, commemorating the 65th anniversary of the liberation.
Working closely with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Mr. Rozell and his students devote themselves to rescuing the evidence of the greatest crime in history, and combating the growing scourge of Holocaust denial.
In May, 2011, Matthew traveled to Israel to meet over 60 survivors whose lives have been effected by his work. Mr. Rozell’s work can be seen at the websites he maintains, teachinghistorymatters.wordpress.com and hfcsd.org/ww2, and also at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website, http://www.ushmm.org/remembrance/dor/years/2010/liberation/.
Proceeds for the dinner benefit the Fort Edward Fire Department and Rogers Island Visitors Center.
Call for reservations and to purchase tickets: 747-3693 or 747-4654

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Matthew Rozell speaks to survivors and families, 5-18-2011. Credit Miri Levy Lavi.

I wait for my turn to speak. Tears feel hot behind my eyes, but do not fall.  I have traveled 8,000 miles, and 500 persons who might not be alive today but for the message I am about to deliver are seated behind my seat in the audience.

I can hear a woman softly sobbing behind me. That almost does it.

Still, I am able to deliver my words.

“Honored survivors, families, Frank, Varda, Ambassador Cunningham, Colonel Cyril, General [Rabbi] Peretz, Minister Hershkovitz, representatives of the Bergen Belsen  Memorial,

Ten years ago this coming July, a high school history teacher sat down with an “old soldier” to record his memories of the Second World War. Carrol Walsh, a retired New York State Supreme Court justice, regaled me with stories of battles and close calls, of days of extreme discomfort and boredom, interspersed with tales of exhaustion and moments of sheer terror that included times when he was sure that he was about to die, trapped inside of a small Sherman light tank. Suffering in the freezing temperatures during the battle of the Bulge, and now in the first weeks of April, 1945 moving into Germany to fight for 18 hour days, he thought he had seen it all. And then, he came upon a curious thing: deep into Germany on Friday the 13th, a train transport was stopped by the side of the tracks. Some human figures were milling about, listlessly; others were still sealed in boxcars.

His fellow commander in the other tank sent to investigate this train, Sergeant George C. Gross, was equally perplexed. Then, as the famished occupants of that train now gazed upon the two tanks and the jeep of the commanding officer, the emblem of the white star emblazoned on the vehicles signaled to them that perhaps they were safe, that perhaps now they were free. Abandoned by their German guards, delivered from death, from the group arose “a hysterical cry of relief”. Sergeant Gross took out his small camera and began snapping photographs as he spoke with the people. He stayed with his tank at the train for 24 hours, Major Benjamin having declared the train and its captives ‘free members of society under the protection of the United States Army” as represented by these two light tanks, to let any stray German soldiers know that it was part of the free world, and not to be bothered again.

Enter First Lieutenant Frank W. Towers, liaison officer of the 30th Infantry Division, who was now charged with removing these survivors to relative safety behind the lines to the abandoned Luftwaffe base at Hilersleben. Expertly navigating the back roads, skirting the blown bridges and other war torn obstacles, Lt. Towers safely delivered his precious charges, children, women and men, where many were nursed slowly back to health. Sadly, as many here in this room can attest, it was too late for over one hundred who succumbed to trials of their ordeal at the hands of the Nazis.

Today, however, as we look about this room, we see the legacy of these soldiers’ actions on April 13th, 1945, soldiers who, though they were being shot at, and many of whom indeed would not live to see the final victory, nevertheless made the moral choice to stop and to restore a semblance of humanity amidst the insanity of war. You proud survivors and your descendants now number in the thousands and are the glorious, incontrovertible proof that Hitler did not win. And as a teacher, I am proud to remember with my students, to promote the legacy of these soldiers, to help the world heal, and spur others to positive action by promoting their example. You may know that I have begun writing a book about my experiences and these stories which have resonated so deeply with all who have heard them.

I will close with the poetic words of liberator George C. Gross, the former English professor whom we lost on Feb. 1, 2009. Dr. Gross and I struck up a warm friendship, and I was also able to interview him before his passing. In this note, he shares his feelings of what his late life encounters with you survivors meant to him:

Greetings …to all the admirable survivors of the train near Magdeburg, and our thanks to you for proving Hitler wrong. You did not vanish from the face of the earth as he and his evil followers planned, but rather you survived, and grew, and became successful and contributing members of free countries, and you are adding your share of free offspring to those free societies. Some of you have found yourselves among those pictured children [whom I photographed], and you have proved that you still have those smiles. I was terribly upset at the proof of man’s inhumanity to man, but I was profoundly uplifted by the dignity and courage shown by you indomitable survivors. I have since been further rewarded to learn what successful, giving lives you have lived since April 13, 1945.

I am grateful to Mr. Rozell for leading several of you to me, bringing added joy to my retiring years. I wish I could be with you in person at this celebration, as I am with you in spirit. I hope you enjoy meeting each other…

My experience at the train was rich and moving, and it has remained so, locked quietly in my heart until sixty years later, when the appearance of you survivors began to brighten up a sedate retirement.

You have blessed me, friends, and I thank you deeply. May your lives, in turn, bring you the great blessings you so richly deserve.

Fondly yours,

George C. Gross”

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Fred Spiegel signs a copy of his book "Once the Acacias Bloomed" as students wait to purchase copies and have their photo taken with the Holocaust survivor after a presentation at Hudson Falls High School on Wednesday, May 11, 2011. Spiegel was liberated by U.S. troops during World War II when he was a young boy. credit: Aaron Eisenhauer - poststar.com

By David Taube, Glens Falls Post Star

Unbeknownst to Fred Spiegel, a Jewish boy living in Germany during World War II, a train that Germans were forcing him and about 70 other people onto was headed for Sobibór, Poland, a death camp.

He started screaming, “I don’t want to get on this train. I don’t want to get on this train.”

His cousin, who was a year older and who was also being pressed onboard, heard him, and added to the shouting.

The German officials held the pair back because they were making so much noise, said Spiegel, now 79. He recounted his story Wednesday to hundreds of Hudson Falls high school students as part of a Day of Remembrance, at which he was one of several speakers.

“If I and my cousin Alfred hadn’t made that commotion, I wouldn’t be standing here today,” he said.

Spiegel spoke for about an hour to hundreds of people in the school auditorium, emphasizing how kismet kept him off the wrong trains and on the right ones.

Despite the 6 million Jews killed during World War II, he wasn’t one of the 1.5 million children the Nazi Party slaughtered in extermination camps.

He was unaware of the train’s true destination until after the war, he said. The extermination camps were called resettlement or work camps.

“People never in their wildest mind thought there were death camps,” he said.

Although Spiegel published his autobiographical and family memoir, “Once the Acacias Bloomed,” in 2004, he learned more about his story four years ago because of a Hudson Falls teacher.

Social studies teacher Matt Rozell, while working on a World War II project with his class, received photos from a soldier who had taken part in liberating a trainload of Jewish prisoners near Magdeburg, Germany.

The class put together a website – the World War II Living History Project – and posted the photos.

The photos showed U.S. forces liberating prisoners from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, one of whom was Spiegel, from an abandoned train near the River Elbe.

Spiegel contacted Rozell and, in 2007, he and two other survivors from the train, were reunited at the school with one of their liberators – Carrol Walsh, a retired state judge.

The World War II Living History Project website has since discovered 200 more people who are survivors from that train and Rozell is leaving Monday for a trip to Israel, where he will speak before dozens of the survivors and their families.

Rozell will also meet in Israel with Frank Towers, a U.S. soldier who was one of the liberators; and the U.S. ambassador to Israel. The district has continued Holocaust remembrance efforts, seeking to hold an event every year, Rozell said, and Spiegel has visited several times.

A crowd of dozens of students surrounded Spiegel after his speech on Wednesday, seeking his autograph and posing for photos with

him.

David Fish, a sophomore, said the event was optional, but students all decided to attend because of the event’s importance. Some of his friends bought Spiegel’s book, he said.

Two other trains that left Magdeburg were also stopped by Allied troops, Spiegel said, but days later, which made food scarce for passengers.

He also said, of about 30,000 people sent to Sobibór from Magdeburg [correction: Westerbork], 19 returned home.

“So, everything is luck,” he said, ending his speech. “OK? Thank you.”

NOTE: You can stream Fred’s talk at Hudson Falls by hitting the link below:

Fred Spiegel- Once the Acacias Bloomed/Memories of a Childhood Lost.

Credit: Post Star May 12, 2011 http://poststar.com/news/local/article_c2ea27d2-7c4a-11e0-909f-001cc4c002e0.html

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1943 Yearbook, Hudson Falls High School

Yesterday our high school hosted an incredible Memorial Concert and Day of Remembrance in forward observance of Memorial Day and also to recall the victims of the Holocaust.

I produced the program that featured readings by our talented high school seniors and the band under the direction of Mr. Scott Larsen. Mr. Roberge again served as our masterful MC. Thanks to all students and staff who made it possible.

Thanks to Rob Miller  and Fred Spiegel for traveling to be with us to share their stories and their books. You can enjoy their presentations by streaming the links below.

Memorial Concert

Rob Miller- Hidden Hell

Fred Spiegel- Once the Acacias Bloomed/Memories of a Childhood Lost.

As quoted in the newspaper,

“Basically, we want to pay tribute to the veterans,” said Matt Rozell, a social studies teacher at the high school. “We have Memorial Day coming up, and unfortunately, sometimes Memorial Day gets overlooked, and it is a big deal. But in school, we get so wrapped up with Regents and state exams.”

Because band director Scott Larsen was already planning a concert with a Memorial Day theme, Rozell said school officials thought it would be nice to include the community in a day of remembrance.

A book fair and book signing will follow the concert in the high school lobby. Three authors of war-based non-fiction books will be present, including Holocaust survivor Fred Spiegel, author of “Once the Acacias Bloomed – Memories of a Childhood Lost.”

Spiegel is one of more than 200 holocaust survivors whom Rozell has located that were on a train that was en route to a death camp in April 1945 before a U.S. tank battalion scared off Nazi troops guarding the train.

Rozell and his Hudson Falls history classes launched a website about the liberation of the 2,000 Jews from that train near Magdeburg, Germany. The website has helped to reunite members of the tank battalion with the former Jewish captives.

Rozell will speak at a formal gathering to honor the liberators next week in Israel, which is known as the first refuge for many Holocaust survivors.

At the Israeli event, Rozell said he will speak before several dozen survivors and their families, as well as liberator Frank Towers and the U.S. ambassador to Israel. His tour will bring him to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial.

The estimated cost of the trip is around $5,000, and Rozell said he has been trying to raise funds through his website,

https://teachinghistorymatters.wordpress.com/rozell-trip/ in order to go.

Wednesday’s concert and remembrance event at the high school will also include a luncheon in the band room for veterans and their families at 11:30 a.m., followed by presentations from Spiegel and from Rob Miller, author of “Hidden Hell,” which describes his father’s experiences as a prisoner of war in World War II.

Post Star May10, 2011

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“Let’s go. ”

With those two words, after much contemplation, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight David Eisenhower made the decision to commit over 1 million men to free a continent.

Photo by Kris Dreessen, SUNY Geneseo.

Many of these soldiers would not survive. Many other lives would be unalterably changed as they uncovered the evidence of the greatest crime in the history of the world, the Holocaust. And the moral path chosen, to stop and give aid and comfort, in the middle of a shooting war, is responsible for many lives today.

Very shortly, I will be meeting over 400 persons who are alive today because of  the soldiers taking the time to stop, rescue and comfort survivors who were literally moments away from death. Many of them will be together again for the first time since 1945- due to our small school project and the ripple effects that are reverberating worldwide.

I have also made an important personal decision. As I struggle to work on my book, an important piece is missing. It’s time to go.

Can you believe that with our school project, we have located over 200 Holocaust survivors who were liberated on that train near Magdeburg on April 13th, 1945? In March, 2006, I heard from the first child survivor, a grandmother in Australia. Fast forward to April 2011, an Israeli daily paper with a circulation of 250,000 ran a front page cover story in their magazine about our school project, thanks to second generation survivor Varda W.,  who has located 70 other survivors there.

As you may know, she has organized a reunion in Israel in May. 60+ survivors and their families will be there to meet one of our liberators, and I will have the opportunity to meet them all, as well as the US Ambassador and other dignitaries.  I am going with my son Ned, who is age 13,  and we are in the process of beginning to raising funds.

It is important to me that I travel to Israel at this time; later, I hope to travel to Germany to trace the journey of the soldiers and the train near Magdeburg.
The post at the link below explains how you can help me continue this work.

https://teachinghistorymatters.wordpress.com/rozell-trip/

If you know me, you probably know that this work is very personal to me, and to my students.  Many of the survivors and liberators have become my friends; many more I hope to meet in the near future.

I’ll close with a note from one who is dear to my heart:

Hi Matt,

I am sending a donation for you and your son, so you can use toward your trip to Israel. This is in appreciation for all you are doing to tell our story.

When you are in Israel remember that I spent my best 20 years there.

When you visit Bergen-Belsen, remember that I spent 4 years of my childhood there-2 years in a concentration camp and 2 years in a D.P. camp.

When you visit Farsleben, ask them to take you to Hillersleben, when you are there you will see the hospital from a distance.

Remember that I spent 6 weeks there, and 3 weeks of which I was unconscious.

Have a great trip!  I hope to hear from you when you come back.

Love,

 A.

Matthew Rozell
Teacher
USA

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