Teaching History Matters

Today they started shooting the trailer for the Train story, on the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Look for it on PBS someday or better yet, give a shout if you can help us get it funded. It will happen. Maybe you can help or know somebody who wants to be a part of it.

matthew@teachinghistorymatters.com

It is a cool spring morning. In the background, down the hill, are two cattle cars. If we look closely, we can see a figure sitting on the edge of the opening of a boxcar, perhaps too weak to climb out yet soaking up some energy from the warming April sun. In front of him, a wisp of smoke seems to rise from a small makeshift fire that others have gathered around. The sound of gunfire is echoing nearby; a metallic clanking sound is growing louder at the top of the hill.

This is an appropriate backdrop for the marvel unfolding in the foreground. Now only a few steps away, a woman and perhaps her young daughter are trudging up the hill toward the photographer. The woman has her hair wrapped in a scarf and is clutching the hand of the girl with her right hand. Her left arm is extended outward as if in greeting; her face is turning into a half smile in a mixture of astonishment and enveloping joy, as if she is on the cusp of accepting the belief that she and her daughter have just been saved.

It is Friday, the 13th of April, 1945. Led by their major scouting in a Jeep, Tanks 12 and 13 of ‘D’ Company, 743rd Tank Battalion, US Army, have just liberated a train transport with thou-sands of sick and emaciated victims of the Holocaust. In an instant, Major Clarence L. Benjamin snaps a photograph so fresh and raw that if one did not know better, one might think it was from a modern cellphone, although it will be soon buried into his official report back to headquarters. 
But what have they stumbled upon? Where have these people come from? 
And what do the soldiers do now?

And on a related note, here is the USHMM social media #AskWhy short released last week, on the 73rd anniversary of the liberation (1:16) Thanks to the Museum’s Josh Blinder and his team…