Teaching History Matters

It was a single moment in time that occurred almost 67 years ago.

But for a group of people gathered in Savannah this weekend, it’s a moment that will forever link their lives.

Bruria Falik, Stephen Gross, Alex Larys, Micha Tomkiewicz and George Somjen were only children when they were incarcerated at the Nazi’s Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in northwestern Germany. In early April 1945, they were among 2,500 Jewish prisoners placed by the Nazis on a southbound train as Allied troops moved in on the camp.

While two trains carrying prisoners before theirs had made their way to other concentration camps, the train carrying Falik, Gross, Larys, Tomkiewicz and Somjen was abandoned by German soldiers near Magdeburg, Germany.

That’s where tank crews from the 743rd Tank Battalion — a unit attached to the 30th Infantry Division that had fought its way through France and into Germany in the months before — discovered the train and its human cargo on April 13.

At the time, 27-year-old Army 1st Lt. Frank Towers was among the American officers sent to liberate the Jews aboard the train.

“This was in the middle of a battle zone with German artillery coming in and American artillery falling short,” said the 94-year-old Towers on Friday. “It was determined that we had to get these people out of the area as quickly as possible.

“That was the job that was delegated to me — get transportation and move these 2,500 people to a town we had liberated the day before at Hillersleben.”

The soldiers moved the people — who were starving, filthy and on the brink of death — to a hospital in that town.

“I made two round trips to get all of these people moved back to Hillersleben,” he said. “At that point I virtually said goodbye to them — told them they’re in good hands and left.”

Decades went by before Towers even thought about the event. It was a war, he said, it wasn’t something he wanted to dwell on. But in 2005, Towers — who is currently the president of the 30th Infantry Division Association — was introduced to a website run by Matt Rozell, a history teacher in upstate New York, called TeachingHistoryMatters.com. There, Towers discovered accounts of his own story of liberating the train full of Jewish prisoners.

“That’s my story,” Towers said of finding the website. “It wasn’t exactly my story, really. But my story ran parallel to that. From that point on Matt and I started collaborating to locate more and more of the survivors.”

During a reunion for World War II veterans from the United States Army's 30th Infantry Division Friday evening in Savannah, three Holocaust survivors and a former soldier speak about their experiences during the war. Pictured, from left to right, are Bruria Falik, Micha Tomkiewicz, Frank Towers and Alex Larys. Towers was a 1st Lieutenant in the Army's 30th Infantry Division that on April 13, 1944 liberated a train that carried all three of the picture survivors. Corey Dickstein/Savannah Morning News

To date, Towers said he’s met about 60 of the survivors — he estimates there could be up to 250 still living[editor’s note-Frank said 225 have been located] — including the five who joined 13 surviving members of the 30th Infantry Division — a National Guard unit of soldiers from Georgia, North and South Carolina and Tennessee that served in both World Wars before being deactivated in November 1945 — in Savannah Friday.

“It’s a rewarding experience to talk to these people,” Towers said. “It’s been astounding. To think I had a small part to play in their liberation and getting them started on a new road to life — to see them today, where they are, that’s been my reward.”

And, said the survivors, it’s equally as rewarding for them to get the chance to say “thank you” to the men who saved their lives.

“For me it’s fascinating,” said Tomkiewicz, now 72 and living in Brooklyn, N.Y. “I knew that American soldiers saved us from the train, but for almost 60 years that was all I knew.

“Suddenly the whole thing has converted to real faces, to real people, to drinking buddies, very pleasant people. And now we are actually like family; what a great opportunity.”

Without the soldiers like Towers, said Falik, now 80 years old and living in Woodstock, N.Y., she and the other survivors would not be alive today.

“It’s such a focal point in my life because I have two wonderful children,” Falik said. “They are here because of the veterans who saved us. I will never forget that.”

http://savannahnow.com/news/2012-03-03/world-war-ii-vets-holocaust-survivors-convene-savannah