Teaching History Matters

A Final Meeting: Holocaust survivors, rescuers meet in Hudson Falls

by Omar Ricardo Aquije, Glens Falls Post-Star

Photos by Jason McKibben

Holocaust survivor Ariela Rojek, right, was 11 years old in 1945 when she and 2,500 other concentration camp prisoners aboard a train near Magdeburg, Germany, were liberated by American forces including 1st Lt. Frank Towers, left with his son Frank Towers Jr., center. "You gave me my second life," Rojek told Towers Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2011, at Hudson Falls High School during an event reuniting soldiers and survivors.
Jason McKibben Glens Falls Post Star

HUDSON FALLS — In preparing to become soldiers, they were taught many things, most of all how to fight the enemy. But on April 13, 1945, members of the U.S. Army’s 30th Infantry Division were caught unprepared.

As they cut across Germany, through cold weather and 18-hour days of fighting, they found a train. Inside were 2,500 Jews who were packed together for six days — sick, dirty, with little food, and infested with lice, fleas and ticks.

The soldiers, riding Sherman tanks, knew how to fight, but were not prepared to treat so many people or for the shock of the train conditions.

“What we were to witness in those days was something we were not prepared for,” said Frank Towers, a first lieutenant in 1945, as World War II was nearing its end.

On Wednesday, Towers, 94, discussed his role with the soldiers who found the train, during the first of a three-day program to teach the Holocaust and reunite the former soldiers with the people they liberated 66 years ago.

The event was at Hudson Falls High School and was the third of its kind there since 2007.

Hudson Falls High School students sing the national anthem in the school's auditorium as a photograph of American forces raising the flag at Iwo Jima is projected on a screen behind them during an event on Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2011, reuniting Holocaust survivors and the soldiers who liberated them
Jason McKibben Glens Falls Post Star

Towers, who traveled from Florida, was one of two former soldiers at the event. Along with them were four men and women who were children on the train.

The Nazis abandoned the train, which was traveling to a concentration camp.

While the U.S. soldiers did not have the resources to treat the passengers, they kept them safe until they could be transported to a military base with a hospital, Towers said.

Towers spoke at a morning event to kick off the program. Through speeches, photos and an audio recording from the 2007 event, the story of the 30th Infantry’s discovery was told. In addition, the former soldiers and Holocaust survivors were honored at the event.

Also explained was the role of the Hudson Falls school. A decade ago, Matt Rozell, a history teacher at the school, interviewed Carrol Walsh, a former soldier, to record his memories of World War II.

It was then that Walsh recalled the day his division found the train near Magdeburg, Germany.

Rozell and his students put the story of the train on a website. Then, over time, people who were passengers on the train found the website and contacted Rozell.

That spawned two reunions, the first in 2007 at the high school, where a handful of Holocaust survivors met Walsh for the first time.

Since then, Rozell has been in contact with 216 people who were on the train and three former soldiers from the 30th Infantry. Some Holocaust survivors and the former soldiers have also been able to meet on their own.

This week’s event will be the last at Hudson Falls because of the difficulty of arranging it and the age of some of the soldiers and Holocaust survivors, Rozell said.

The event uses the theme “Repairing the World” to teach about the Holocaust. There will be speeches from Holocaust survivors, author Robert Miller, and Helen Patton, granddaughter of Gen. George Patton. Helen Patton is the founder of the Patton Stiftung Sustainable Trust in Germany, which uses art and culture to create peace between groups that have sometimes been in conflict with each other.

On Thursday, the Holocaust documentary, “Paper Clips,” will be shown.

Walsh, who was present at the 2007 and 2009 reunions but was absent Wednesday because of health reasons, had a letter read at the morning event.

In the letter, he wrote that rescuing the captives from the train was part of his job as a soldier, and thus he’s owed no debt. Instead, he wrote that the Jews are owed the debt for being victims of genocide, of losing their freedom, dignity, family members and lives during World War II.

“We can best pay that debt by keeping the memories of the Holocaust alive,” Walsh wrote in his letter.

Bruria Falik, a passenger on the train who today lives in Woodstock, attended the reunion. She said she was pleased by the extent of the school to study and teach the Holocaust.

She said she felt “unexplainable gratitude” when meeting the soldiers who liberated her.

“It is overwhelming,” she said. “You can’t ignore the feeling you get to be with Mr. Towers and the other soldiers.”

Leslie Meisels, another passenger on the train, came to Hudson Falls from Toronto, where he lives and speaks at schools about the Holocaust.

“There are no words to describe that feeling,” Meisels said of meeting the soldiers and Holocaust survivors.

After the morning event, students had their photos taken with the soldiers and survivors and obtained their autographs.

Cassandra VanEvery, a high school freshman, said it was hard to believe a group of people would attempt genocide.

“It was very emotional,” Cassandra said of the event.

Freshman Jacob Dimick said the event was hard on him, too. Not only was it difficult to hear about the horrors the Jews encountered, but it also reminded him of the stories he heard from his uncle, who was a soldier during World War II.

Holocaust survivor Leslie Meisels, left, signs a program for Hudson Falls senior Taylor Bump during Wednesday's "Remembering the Holocaust, Repairing the World" event. Meisels, who currently lives in Toronto, stressed the importance of relaying his experience to young people "so they remember and fight against discrimination, hatred and injustice."
Jason McKibben Glens Falls Post Star

“It’s a wonderful treat to meet them,” Jacob said of meeting the Holocaust survivors. “But people need to understand that it’s a horrible thing what happened to them.”

By recalling history and meeting others who lived it, people like Towers said it’s important for students to learn about the Holocaust so it can never be repeated.

“The message I’m trying to put forth is these students are our future,” Towers said. “I’m trying to convey to them that this (the Holocaust) should never happen again.”

Read more: http://poststar.com/news/local/a-final-meeting-holocaust-survivors-rescuers-meet-in-hudson-falls/article_4326887c-e4a7-11e0-b6ba-001cc4c03286.html?mode=story#ixzz1syWEPw00

The final conference is open to the public provided you preregister by calling 518-681-4221. THE LIVE STREAM IS HERE

mms://media.hfcsd.org/reunion

MORNING PROGRAM 9:30am-10:59am

9:30 am-  Block II at Hudson Falls High School Auditorium

THEME: THE LIBERATORS AND SURVIVORS OF A “TRAIN NEAR MAGDEBURG”

9:40am-  Program begins-

Welcome by Mr. James Bennefield,  High School Principal

Introduction by  Mr. Rene Roberge, Hudson Falls High School / Master of Ceremonies

National Anthem

A Letter from Liberator Carrol Walsh

Speaker: Dr. Tim Gross, son of George C. Gross

Speaker: Liberator Frank Towers

Introduction of members of the 30^th Infantry Division ,and Holocaust survivors

10:59 am– End of Morning Program

11:00am- 11:30am-Book Fair/Signings, Media interviews

11:30-1pm-               Catered Luncheon, High School Library

12:00-1pm              Film, A Special Reunion/The Story of the Liberation of the “Train Near Magdeburg”

AFTERNOON PROGRAM (Seating Limited; Middle School Here)– 1:00pm-2:20pm

Block IV- High School Auditorium

THEME: LIBERATION

1:05pm:Film, A Special Reunion/The Story of the Liberation of the “Train Near Magdeburg”

Speaker: Liberator Frank Towers

Speaker: Survivor Bruria Falik (Hungary; Woodstock, NY)

Speaker: Survivor Fred Spiegel (Germany; Howell, NJ)

2:20 pm   Questions and Answers/Conclusion of Day’s Activities

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Thursday, September 22, 2011

MORNING PROGRAM 9:30am-10:59am

9:30 am-  Block II at Hudson Falls High School Auditorium

THEME: SURVIVAL AND LIBERATION

9:40 am-                 Introduction-Program begins-

National Anthem

A Letter to the Chaplain: A Liberator’s 1945 Eyewitness Account of the Farsleben                Train-Mr. Rene Roberge, Hudson Falls High School

Speaker: Survivor Leslie Meisels (Hungary; Toronto, Canada)

Speaker:  Survivor Ariela Rojek (Poland; Toronto, Canada)

10:59 am– End of Morning Program

11:00am- 11:30am-Book Fair/Signings, Media interviews

11:30-1pm-               Catered Luncheon, High School Library

11:35-1pm              Film, Paper Clips, Auditorium

AFTERNOON PROGRAM– 1:00pm-2:20pm

Block IV- High School Auditorium

THEME: HOLOCAUST EDUCATION; REPAIRING THE WORLD

1:05 pm:-    Speaker:  Producer Joe Fab, Paper Clips -“What One Person Can Do”

Mr. Fab has received wide acclaim for his work as producer, writer and co-director of the feature documentary “Paper Clips”.“Paper Clips” has been praised by critics and received numerous film festival awards, both from juries and audiences. It was named one of the top five documentaries of 2004 by the National Board of Review and received the Jewish Image Award in recognition of its promotion of cross cultural communication.

2pm: Survivor discussion to follow with q+a with students.

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Friday September 23, 2011

MORNING PROGRAM 9:30am-10:59am

9:30 am-  Block II at Hudson Falls High School Auditorium

THEME: REMEMBERING THE SOLDIERS OF WORLD WAR II

9:40 am-                  Introduction-Program begins-

National Anthem

Speaker:  Robert Miller, author, Hidden Hell and Portraits of Service          Upon returning home, too many veterans were met with indifference and did not receive continuing support, struggling to rebuild shattered lives to restore a sense of normalcy. Mr. Miller will discuss his fathers’ POW experience and his upcoming portrait book which focuses public attention on the living veterans of all wars who have experienced the horrors of war on behalf of our nation.

Hardcover version of “Hidden Hell” (formally “Finding My Father’s War”) which describes his father’s experiences as a POW in World War II. $20

Speaker:  Survivor Micha Tomkiewicz (Poland; Brooklyn, New York)

Micha Tomkiewicz was born on May 25, 1939 in Warsaw Poland- three months before the German invasion that started WWII. The family lived together in the Warsaw Ghetto. Toward the end of 1942, he was moved to the Christian side of the city. After the Ghetto uprising and the destruction of the Ghetto, most of his family was transported to the Treblinka concentration camp. His father and two uncles jumped from the train;  his father and uncle were shot and killed by the Germans, but one uncle survived and walked back to Warsaw. In June, 1943, Micha, his mother and the surviving uncle were transported to the Bergen Belsen concentration camp as part of a hostage program that was designed by the Germans. On April 13, 1945, the train transporting the hostages was intercepted near Magdeburg, Germany by a unit of the American 30^th Division. Micha and his mother were transported to the Hillersleben Displaced Persons camp. After liberation, Micha was educated in Palestine, which in 1948 became the State of Israel. He is now Professor of Physics and Director of the Environmental Studies program at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

10:59 am– End of Morning Program

11:00am- 11:30am-Book Fair/Signings, Media interviews

11:30-1pm-               Catered Luncheon, High School Library

11:35-1pm              Film, Steal a Pencil for Me, featuring train survivors Ina and                              Jack Polak-Auditorium

AFTERNOON PROGRAM– 1:00pm-2:20pm  Block IV- High School Auditorium

THEME: THEME: HOLOCAUST EDUCATION; REPAIRING THE WORLD

1:05pm    Speaker, Helen Patton,  Patton Stiftung Sustainable Trust

In 2004 Helen began drawing from the inspiration of her surroundings to reach out in a personal way for a more empathetic and compassionate world.  She created The Patton Stiftung Sustainable Trust as a natural progression of the enduring peace which her grandfather George S. Patton Jr. helped restore to Europe in 1945. The Trust’s goal is to nurture constructive, sustainable culture in which difficulties can be worked out and dissonance celebrated.

2pm: Survivor discussion to follow with q+a with students.

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BOOKS FOR SALE: Rob Miller- Hardcover version of “Hidden Hell” (formally “Finding My Father’s War”) which describes his father’s experiences as a POW in World War II. $25

Fred Spiegel- Once the Acacias Bloomed- Memories of a Childhood Lost– “An extraordinary tale of one man’s indomitable drive to live, and to live in grace despite what happened to him.” $10

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

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

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.

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

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”