Posted in Uncategorized, tagged for the sake of humanity, history, history education, humanity, MLK, MLK Jr. on January 21, 2013|
I made this video tribute a few years ago for my students. When it ends, they always sit in silence. The speech at the beginning was to striking sanitation workers in Memphis the night before he was killed.
Even though his birthday was last week, we stop and recall today.
For the sake of humanity.
You may enjoy. Five minutes of your time. Click the little gear for HD viewing.
Good also for kids to see to begin the conversation.
Peace and every good wish.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 30th Infantry Division, 531st Anti-Aircraft Artillery, 743rd Tank Battalion, 95th Medical Battalion, Bergen Belsen, bergen belsen concentration camp, Bergen Belsen Memorial, education, Farsleben, Hillersleben, history education, Holocaust, Holocaust Education, Holocaust survivor-liberator reunion, Holocaust Survivors, Liberators, World War II, World War II Living History Project on January 15, 2013|
Matthew Rozell, 30th Infantry Veterans of WWII, Holocaust survivors at Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum, March 2, 2012.
Frank Towers’ invitation to soldiers, survivors, interested parties and their families to come to Louisville in the spring. The soldiers have convened annually since the end of World War II; since 2008, thanks to the project, the 30th Infantry Division has hosted Holocaust survivors and their families as well for very emotional, uplifting, and fun times. Email for details.
*********************************************************************************************************
Don’t forget the dates!! April 11 – 12 – 13, 2013
Don’t forget to make your Hotel Reservation
and Registration!!
Hotel Crowne Plaza, Louisville, KY
*********************************************************************************************************
Dear Fellow 30 Division Members and Friends:
I hope you all enjoyed your holiday and that the New Year holds only good things for you and your family.
Now that the holidays are over it is time to focus on making your reservations for the Reunion. Included are the Pre-Registration Form and the Reservation Form and the information to make your hotel reservations. Please do it NOW.
We have a great program planned and will include a trip to the Louisville Slugger Factory and Museum, a professional photographer that will take a picture of you and/or your family (so bring your medals and ribbons to show off). We will also have one of Louisville’s noteworthy news casters, Ken Schulz, MC our banquet on Saturday evening. Our entertainment will include a local bagpiper as well as others.
Why come to Louisville?
Louisville, is a city of urban neighborhoods that have been revitalized, and some of our best known shopping areas are the Bardstown Road and Frankfort Avenue corridors with their small shops and plentiful locally owned restaurants. The homes and buildings in the Old Louisville neighborhood is one of the largest historic preservation districts featuring Victorian architecture in the U.S. The Downtown area has had significant renovations over the last few years with the construction of the YUM! Center which is home court for our Louisville Cardinals men’s and women’s basketball teams. The Center, along with Waterfront Park and Fourth Street Live, have attracted new housing, shops and restaurants breathing new life into the area.
Louisville has museums to interest everyone.. Home to the Frazier International History Museum; The Muhammad Ali Center; The Louisville Science Center; The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft and many, many more.
Our hotel, the Crowne Plaza, is locally owned and operated. It is near the airport and offers free shuttle service from the airport to the hotel. The Crowne Plaza also offers many amenities including indoor/outdoor pool, fitness center, boutique shop, 24 hours business center, complimentary Wi-Fi, and more.
You can see Louisville is the place to be, so much so that Louisville was named “The Top U.S. Travel Destination for 2013” by Lonely Planet’s, the world’s leading travel publisher.
We are looking forward to having you here and sharing some of our history and hospitality with you, and most of all, to meet many of your former friends and colleagues.
Best Regards,
Bill Vaughan. President
30th Infantry Division Veterans of WWII
*********************************************************************************************************
Taps – 2012
(Last 6 Months)
ADAMS, Cleveland L. 30 MP Plat. 7/30/12 Stockbridge, GA
ADKINSON, Bruce 743 TkBn B 6/17/12 Beverly, MA
DUMEY JR, (DuMay) Leon 120-G 11/23/12 Cape Girardeau, MOM
FARKAS, Louis 119-I 12/ /12 Colton, OR
HOGUE, Donald W. 117 K 6/12/12 Montevallo, AL
HOUCK, Arthur T. 120-K 6/16/12 Hampstead, MD
LAZINGER, Sol 117-B 6/13/12 Philadelphia, PA
MAXEY, James C. 120 CN 6/ 29 /12 Tullahoma, TN
MILLER, Edmund L. 120-H 9/07/12 Pewamo, MI
PITRUZZELLO, Joseph S. 119-L 5/02/08* Alexander City, AL
PRUITT, Frank H. 120-2BnHq 12/10/12 Spartanburg, SC
PULVER, Murray S. 120-B 9/21/12 Peoria, AZ
STANFORD, Arna V. Widow 8/18/10* Williamsburg, VA
STECKLER, William 105 Engr. B 9/09/12 Palm Harbor, FL
SULLIVAN, Thomas “Jack” 118 FA 8/07/12 Savannah, GA
TURNER, Woodrow W. 117-F 8/15/12 Littleton, CO
UBBES, Jean M 743 TkBn-B 7/28/12 Kalamazoo, MI
VOORHIS, Thomas K. 120-K 8/06/12 Manteca, CA
WALSH, Carrol S. 743 TkBn-D 12/17/12 Sarasota, FL
YOUNG SR., James E. 120 6/26/12 Butler, PA
Those with an asterisk (*) were received too late for a prior publication.
Our Most Sincere Condolences to the Families of These Lost Heroes
*********************************************************************************************************
As most of you already know, men of the 743rd Tk. Bn., and 30th Infantry Division, liberated over 2.500 victims of the Holocaust from Bergen-Belsen on 13 April 1945.
We will be honored to have some of these Survivors join with us again at Louisville. Two of them have never been with us before, so they will give a resume of their life history, so be sure to come to hear these stories that have never been told before.
One of these Survivors will be coming all of the way from Jerusalem, Israel, joining with other members of his family, to meet his Liberators for the first time. The other Survivor will be coming from San Diego, CA with his daughter, also to meet for the very first time with some of his liberators.
To make it clear, each of you veterans were “Liberators” of this group of victims. Although you may not have had any personal hands-on experience with them at the time of their liberation, You were doing your job which was supporting the action in the local vicinity of this tremendous discovery and the release of these frail humans to Freedom.
Join with us on this occasion to meet these Survivors that you helped to liberate 68 years ago !!
This will be an Historic event !! 68 years to the date of their Liberation !!!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 30th Infantry Division, 743rd Tank Battalion, belsen concentration camp, Bergen Belsen Memorial, education, history education, holocast education, Holocaust, Liberators, Matthew Rozell, narrative history, Power of Teaching, Purposeful Life, Teachers, Teaching, teaching history matters, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, World War II, World War II Living History Project on January 1, 2013|
Class Act
Historic Reuniter
By Nancy Cooper
Photography by Erica Miller
Volume 147, Number 1, January/February 2013, Page 7
How does a young man from a small town with no experience in Holocaust education become a well-regarded figure in World War II and Holocaust history nationwide?
Not purposely posed. Erica Miller photo. Click the photo to see what I mean…. Only thing missing from 1992 is Dad.
The answer is part of the story of the remarkable career of Matthew Rozell, history teacher at Hudson Falls High School in New York. Following in the footsteps of his father, who was a history teacher in a nearby town, Rozell has taught at his alma mater for the past 25 years.
When Rozell emphasizes to his students the importance of tracking down primary sources, he has a dramatic way of proving his point. Through such primary research, he and his students have been able to identify and reunite Holocaust survivors with the U.S. soldiers who freed them.
Rozell’s instrumental role in such a historic reunion began in 2001 when he sat with Carrol “Red” Walsh, tank commander, U.S. Army 743rd Tank Battalion, to listen to some of his World War II tales. After nearly two hours of conversation, Walsh was reminded by his daughter to “tell [Rozell] about the train.” That prompt was a catalyst to a bigger story.
Walsh related that in April 13, 1945, his tank division saw something unexpected near Magdeburg, Germany: freight train cars alone on a track. When he drove his tank alongside the train, he could see that the cars were filled with Jewish men, women and children—more than 2,000 of them.
Intrigued by the story, Rozell searched for photographs of the liberation, which he posted on his school’s website in 2002. It wasn’t until four years later that Rozell received an e-mail from a grandmother in Australia who had been a 7-year-old girl on that train. She said that as soon as saw the photographs, she fell out of her chair: This was the day of her liberation in 1945.
From then on, “Almost every time I opened my e-mail inbox, there would be another message from a survivor, somebody that I wasn’t aware of before,” Rozell says. “These people weren’t aware of each other for the most part before finding the site.”
With the help of liberator Frank Towers and a survivor’s daughter, Varda Weisskopf of Israel, Rozell and his students went on to reunite nearly 225 Holocaust survivors with their American liberators. Rozell organized 10 reunions: One took place in Israel and three happened at his school. Students recorded the individuals’ interviews as part of a World War II Living History Project (www.hfcsd.org/ww2). Learn more at https://teachinghistorymatters.wordpress.com.{clarification: there have been at least 10 reunions since Rozell began the project; however he did not organize the ones occurring off campus but rather participated in or otherwise helped to facilitate them.}
Students have said of Rozell and the project: “He puts history right in front of your eyes. Never could I have gotten the experience of meeting such inspiring people who learned to love after the ultimate form of prejudice was thrust upon them. A message of acceptance not only reached the little town of Hudson Falls, but the entire world.”
“It’s life-altering,” said another. “And because we’ve heard these stories, it’s our job to make sure it won’t happen again.”
The powerful lesson hasn’t been limited to his students at Hudson Falls. In 2008 Rozell was awarded a Museum Teacher Fellowship at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for his work in Holocaust education. The Tennessee Holocaust Commission has created workshops based on his work. On September 25, 2009, Rozell and his students were named ABC World News “Persons of the Week.” His project was also the subject of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum documentary “Honoring Liberation,” which debuted at the Holocaust Days of Remembrance in Washington, D.C., in April 2010.
To keep his teaching methods fresh, Rozell says, “I listen to the kids and adjust all the time. Some days you do not know the impact you have, but I can look to the dozens of kids who have gone into history education as a feather in my cap of sorts.”
He advises today’s youth not to take the sacrifices of the past for granted: “Talk to older Americans who served their nation.”
-American Spirit Magazine, Jan.Feb. 2013. National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged education, history education, Power of Teaching, Purposeful Life, teacher training, Teachers, Teaching, teaching history matters on December 4, 2012|
Another great and timely email…
From: Philip M. Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2012 6:26 PM
Subject: Your Dad
I just wanted to take a moment to send you an e mail. I was in your Dad’s classes from 1977- 1978 at Glens Falls HS, He was a teacher who inspired learning.
He was my favorite teacher along with Mr Cubbins, I went on to teach French, Spanish, Social Studies, Economics, Government, World History, and many other classes…
Also I was able to earn a pension after many years from the US Army at the Rank of Major. Without good teachers, I never would have accomplished anything.
My Dad was a teacher also and he passed away 10 4 2004. Sincerely, Philip M.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Today, Dec. 4th, would have been my dad Tony Rozell’s 81st birthday. He passed away in 2000. Phil’s email above was a reminder. Good timing, Phil! From father to son! About the time you had my dad in the classroom I was trying to figure out how to get away from him, and this town!
A couple Dad stories.
Dad (Tony) entered the Air Force at the outbreak of the Korean Conflict and quickly rose through the ranks. He was a superior clerk and administrator who served in the war zone and saw death and destruction near the 38th parallel. There is one story Dad used to relate that I really like. In the early days of his service, he was singled out for abuse by a mean-spirited corporal who particularly delighted in bullying the 88 lb. runt from Hudson Falls. Years later, after Tony had proven his abilities and achieved the rank of Tech. Staff Sergeant, this same corporal came to his office to receive his orders. He avoided Dad’s eyes as Dad handed them to him, and Tony asked quietly if the corporal remembered him. The former bully’s eyes darted around the room and back to his feet, as he nervously replied, “No, sir!” With that, Dad nodded and bid his former tormenter farewell without the dressing down he so richly deserved. He could have shipped the guy to Timbuktu.
Dad had a large impact on a great many lives outside of the immediate family, and was a great influence on me as a teacher, though I never saw him teach myself. I do recall early in my teaching career going into his school with him to get some materials and encountering three boys kicking a crushed milk carton back and forth in a stairwell. I wondered how my father (the teacher) was going to handle this- would they be sent to the office? Reprimanded? Told to pick up the milk carton and exit the building promptly? I think they were wondering this, too, when Dad just jumped in the middle and began to kick it around with them…
He rarely had discipline problems because he loved the students more than he loved the authority and power he had over them. He was never sour or burned out. He always came home from school humming to himself and generally in an upbeat mood. I can remember him saying on many occasions how much he loved his career “because the kids are always different-no two are ever alike.”
Before he retired in the early 1990s, the Glens Falls Post Star ran a feature article on Da
d and I as teachers. I think Dad hit it right on the head when he said, “Teaching is not a matter of how smart you are, it’s a matter of personality…If you know your subject and you’re fair, it doesn’t make any difference what you teach.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Feb 3, 1992 Glens Falls Post Star story. Captain and the Kid.
Rozell Family has “history” of teaching
By Laura Rappaport, Staff Writer
February 3, 1992
When history teacher Matthew Rozell was a youngster, his parents made him stay inside all day to watch the first moon landing on television.
“I remember being so angry, but I’m glad they did that, now,” Rozell said.
Now, some 20 years later, that history lesson and others led the naturally curious boy to follow his father’s footsteps to the head of a history class. Not as a student, but as a teacher.
Matthew and his father Anthony Rozell both teach history at area high schools, the father at Glens Falls, where he is chairman of the social studies department; and the son at Hudson Falls, where both Rozells went to school.
“I’ve never known anything but being in school,” Matthew said in a recent after-school interview in his classroom at Hudson Falls High, “It just depends on which side of the desk you’re on.”
But despite sharing an interest in history and students, the Rozells have never seen each other teach. Not that the son hasn’t grabbed bits of wisdom from his dad, who’s going on 30 years at Glens Falls High School. It’s just that there’s been little time for observation when each is so busy in his own classroom.
“He gave me access to things I wouldn’t otherwise have had access to,” the younger Rozell said. His father did give him some visual aids such as filmstrips and slide programs, as well as a few tips on teaching. But overall, “Matthew’s very independent,” his father said. Maybe so, but the younger Rozell credits his parents with kindling his interest in history by exposing him and his four siblings to it. On trips to Boston and New York City the family would visit the major museums and historical sites. “I was always very interested in what I saw,” said Matthew Rozell, adding that he usually had more questions than his brother and sisters. Also, with a father who teaches summer school, (Anthony taught summers in Hudson Falls for 21 years) it was hard to get away from school subjects – even for a few months. On summer afternoons or evenings, the father might play tapes or show slides of what he was working on in school. “It wasn’t like he would sit and make us watch it,” said Matthew. “I wasn’t enthralled, but at the same time I was exposed to it.” And his parents made sure their kids paid attention to important world events, like the historic moon landing. “He gave me money to go to the newsstand” for the momentous, occasions, Matthew said.
The elder Rozell is also a collector who hangs onto magazine and newspaper articles about the big stories of the day. His classroom bulletin boards at Glens Falls are covered with yellowing newspaper pages.
Contemplating retirement at the end of the next school year, the senior Rozell said he fell into teaching “out of the blue” in 1958 when there was a lack of teachers in the state. He had wanted to be a minister and started his education at St. Joseph’s Catholic Seminary in Yonkers. He already had almost all of the necessary graduate credits in history and was offered a chance to take a few more credits to become certified and guaranteed a teaching job. “I could not help but do that,” he recalled. “Once I got into it, everything fell into place, and 1’ve enjoyed it ever since.”
His son, now 30, followed a tougher path: jobs were scarce when he finished his teaching degree at State University of New York at Geneseo in 1985. He looked for work in the western part of the state, and even had the opportunity to run a restaurant or become a chef. But Matthew Rozell felt he shouldn’t throw away his education. “I spent too much money on my education to just give it up,” he said.
Failing to find a job in western New York, the young Rozell came home to Hudson Falls and stayed with his parents. He finally landed his present job – with a little help from dad,.- midway into the 1987 school year after a year at St. Mary’s Academy. He was the third teacher the class had that year, and it was a tough assignment. “When I first came here I was more interested in survival,” he acknowledged. “It’s like throwing a piece of meat to the wolves.” The more experienced Rozell helped his son through some of the rough spots in the beginning, and Matthew Rozell turns to his father less now, in his fifth year teaching.
Father and son are close, but they don’t spend a lot of time talking about education and lesson plans. The teachers’ wives may actually have been brought closer together by sharing similar work – in the South Glens Falls Central School District, Matthew observed. His wife Laura teaches special education at South Glens Falls, while his mother, Mary, is the school nurse teacher there. The two women have become very close, and usually go to staff meetings together, according to Matthew.
“They like to wear the same outfits on those days and see if anyone will notice,” he said.
Anthony Rozell looked back on his own long career in education and ahead to the future his son will face in the classroom. “A teacher today has access to so much material,” he said. “I didn’t have one iota of a film strip or a tape … I
21 years on. Article for release Feb. 2013. Dad is gone but spirit is raging. Erica Miller photo.
just had to drum it into their heads,” Kids are different today, too, the father noted. More come to school with problems at home that can interfere with their studies. The students he gets the most joy from are those who bring with them a good attitude toward learning and toward life. “The ones you have that are happy people, smiling people, polite people, those are the ones you never forget,” he said. And those are usually students whose families take an interest in their learning and well-being. . “They know that they belong,” he said. “Their parents are really caretakers. That’s nice.”
And in the final analysis, said Anthony Rozell, there’s not a lot a father can really teach a son about the profession or art of teaching.
“A teacher finds, eventually, their own niche, their own method,” he said. “Teaching is not a matter of how smart you are, it’s a matter of personality …. If you’re strong and , fair, it doesn’t make any difference what you teach.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Old Man was tickled when this letter to the editor appeared in the Post Star shortly thereafter…
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Brother Ned’s observations on the Dad’s 80th…
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 30th Infantry Division, 743rd Tank Battalion, Bergen Belsen, Bergen Belsen Memorial, education, Farsleben, Hillersleben, history education, Holocaust survivor-liberator reunion, Holocaust Survivors, Liberators, narrative history, teaching history matters, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, World War II Living History Project on November 28, 2012|
Just when you think that maybe things are “quieting down”, an email comes in your inbox again.
At Thanksgiving Time.
Can’t wait to speak to Kurt. In the meantime, read below. He has to be around the 230th survivor of the train to make our acquaintance…good work Frank and Varda! Frank, you never cease to amaze me, at 95 yrs young, you are doing laps around me! So now I can share with the students, and fellow survivors and soldiers!
In the words of survivor Dr. Micha Tomkiewitz, “welcome to the family!”
—–Original Message—–
From: Kurt Bronner
Survivors Kurt Bronner and his lovely wife. Thanks to Frank and Varda W. for finding them- “welcome to the family”
Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 2:31 PM
To: Rozell Matt
Subject: Thanks
Dear Matt…This last week I have been in touch with Frank Towers and Varda W….They found me on the list on survivors of the deathtrain..I have seen movies and stories…Its like my past has been opened up…On this day of Thanksgiving I would like to wish you a happy peaceful Year and thank you for opening up a chapter of many survivors on that train…I live in Los Angeles and the Burbank school system has had a similar program and I have been talking to students in junior and high schools…Have 100s of letters from the students…Teachers like you are in my Golden book..Thank you for your groundbreaking efforts…with my best to You and your family with my love, Kurt Bronner
Teaching tolerance
April 08, 2000
by Irma Lemus, Burbank Leader
MEDIA DISTRICT NORTH — Fifty-five years have passed, but Kurt Bronner can still vividly recall his mother being beaten by a Nazi soldier as he watched helplessly through a barbed wire fence. It was the last time Bronner, now 74, ever saw his mother.
The Encino resident revisited the horrific nine months he spent at Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp in northern Germany, Friday during a presentation to Burbank High School students.
The event was part of the Burbank Human Relations Council’s Holocaust remembrance program, held every April and May to coincide with Burbank’s Interfaith Days of Remembrance. About 25 Holocaust survivors and liberators are involved in the program, speaking at area schools about the human toll of hate and bigotry run amok
“If you remember anything from today, remember that hate exists and you, as future leaders, must stop the Holocaust from happening again,” Bronner, a Hungarian native, told the students.
“People think that it can’t happen here, but I remember my father once told me that it couldn’t happen in Hungary and it did,” said Bronner, who was removed from his home along with his family at the age of 17.
Don Duplechein, who served in the U.S. Army’s 567th Ambulance Company during World War II, also spoke to students Friday. He described the scene as he and about 30 other troops arrived at the Nazis’ Dachau death camp at the end of the war.
“You couldn’t believe it. When we arrived we saw people begging for food with lice all over their heads. We knew we had to feed and bathe these people,” Duplechein said.
To a small group of students who gathered after the presentation, Bronner spoke in more detail about his experiences in the concentration camp.
“A lot of people think that children were held at the camps, but the truth is that in a lot of the camps the children were killed and the only ones allowed to live were young people and adults,” he said.
Danny Screws, 17-year-old Burbank junior, said it was difficult to believe that nobody was willing to act to stop what was happening.
“I asked him [Bronner] how the government could let the people be treated that way. He told me that, although they were from Hungary, they were still Jews. I think that was wrong,” Screws said.
Bronner described traveling to the concentration camp by train with hundreds of people piled into a single boxcar, barely able to move or breathe . He talked about the horrible living conditions at the camps where thousands of people died from starvation and disease.
“I remember trying to find my father’s body as he was put on a horse-drawn carriage. I couldn’t find him to say goodbye because of all the bodies piled up,” said Bronner, whose father died at Bergen-Belsen.
Bronner was asked if he hated the Nazis for what they did to his family.
“You know, a student once asked me what I would do if the people that killed my parents walked through the door. I told the student that killing the person wouldn’t bring my parents back and it would make me a killer. You have to forgive, but never forget,” he said.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 95th Medical Battalion, Bergen Belsen, education, Hillersleben, history education, Holocaust, Holocaust Survivors, humanity, Liberators, Matthew Rozell, NYSUT, Power of Teaching, PTSD, Teachers, Teaching, thanksgiving, World War II on November 17, 2012| 2 Comments »
Here is the interview that I did with NYSUT last week.
A staff member who is maybe thinking of leaving the profession wrote me a nice card about a month ago. In a follow up conversation she told me she saw me as a “beacon”- her word- for other teachers. That’s fairly heavy stuff to hear.
I feel responsibility to add some extra comments below for the benefit of teachers in general, and anyone else who is interested.
Photo credit: Kris Dressen.
The reporter was competent, engaged and interested, but she had her deadline and we ran out of time.
I did not have a chance to tell her about the medic. I’ll include it below and will be passing it on to her. Kind of like the “moral of the story”, especially when you realize what it means for the soldiers.
I hope it serves as a reminder to teachers that what we all do every day makes a difference.
Here is the postscript to the story.
*********************************************************************************
An important epilogue to the NYSUT story.
I know that some of you have been following the unfolding of the train liberation and reunions. The part that is not mentioned in the article is a phone call I got last Oct. from an 88 year old man in Scranton, PA who found me- and really wanted to be put in touch with the survivors.
You see, he had been a twenty something Army medic in 1945 when ordered to move out to the abandoned German Air Force hospital grounds at Hilersleben, immediately after the tank commanders came across that “death train” and Frank Towers evacuated the occupants to get them out of the battle zone.
Blessed – or maybe cursed – with a terrific memory, he can vividly recall the screams and overall sense of dread permeating the hospital, where he and his fellow medics wore a daily uniform of surgical masks, gloves and rubber aprons.
He remembers scooping handfuls of lice out of patients’ hair and administering countless needles, and the time he had to carry the body of a little girl to a tent serving as a makeshift morgue.
For six nonstop weeks after the liberation they confronted the horror and the evil. Well over 100 Holocaust victims, now his patients, died after they were freed by our troops. No one had trained Walter for this, and for all these years he has lived with the guilt, the nightmares, and the trauma.
For 60 years he and his wartime buddies met after the war. Walter told me and some of our kids that in recounting their war stories, not one of them ever brought up that place called Hilersleben.
Those guys must have suffered from PTSD. And like many soldiers, his generation just did not talk about that.
Now he calls me at school, to chat, laugh, to let me know which of our survivors has contacted him, and to tell me he wants to meet me.
********************************************
Wait a minute-rewind- How did that happen?
I mean, Why did HE, find ME?
That all happened WAY before I was born.
I think about this, every single day.
Is there a reason I put on this earth? How do I make sense of my responsibility as a human being?
Did those soldiers have to put themselves in harm’s way, in many respects scarring themselves for life, to care for “the brutalized and wretched” whom they did not even know?
******************************
What I offer to other teachers:
I’m an educator and so are you. As persons who spend most of our waking hours with young people, I can only postulate that we are in the “business” of molding human beings- which of course is not really a business at all. Like the soldiers thrust into that situation, ultimately we are caretakers of humanity. It is an overwhelming responsibility, but it is not just a job.
It’s a mission.
Those soldiers made choices, confronted evil, sacrificed a ton, and saved humanity– Carrol, George, Frank, and Walter (“the Babe”)- and in doing so, I know they saved me, too. It sounds cliché, simplistic, Pollyanna, whatever- but it’s true.
You do your best to make a difference.
Lots of times you think you lose.
But here’s the real crazy part- most of the time you probably win.
Like these soldiers, sometimes you don’t know you have won until years later.
It’s just what we do.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged education, history education on November 7, 2012| 3 Comments »
down in Florida. It could very well be Carrol in this drawing by survivor Ervin Abadi of the 1945 liberation day. He was a Hungarian artist who nearly died in Belsen. Of course he did not know who the American driving the tank was. None of the 2500 liberated did.They do now. Because of a teacher and his kids, who cared.
*****************************************************************************
In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself in a dark wood where the straight way was lost.
The other day I received the Holocaust library of one of the survivors who really meant a lot to me, who passed away earlier in the year. His daughters wanted me to have them. I unpacked two big boxes of books and put them on my bookcase.
The first title I picked “randomly” to open was In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, about the unfolding Nazi horror through the eyes of our first diplomat to Hitler’s Germany in 1933.
In a dark night of the soul moment, literally around 3am, the first page I opened to had this quote:
“In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself in a dark wood, where the straight way was lost.”– from Dante. The Divine Comedy.
Whoa.
I read it, and re-read it. Over and over.
It resonated with me as if my friend Steve was speaking to me from beyond. And I know he was. In the ABC News video, he explains how his life was profoundly altered, and it is a reminder to me that the choices that I have made as an educator are for the sake of humanity.
The wood is dark. I can now see that the straight way may be lost, but I come to myself. The path is still there.
Creating meaningful life learning experiences for our kids are what being a teacher is all about.
Don’t all real teachers do this, for the sake of humanity?
***************************************************************************
We cultivate the ideals of character, leadership, scholarship, and service to others. The seniors speak of individuals in history who have gone through trials to triumph in the face of adversity. We have been practicing night after night for the big day tomorrow. They will make their parents and teachers very proud.
Some parents, community movers and shakers, will approach me and say thank you for what you are doing for our children, for helping them blossom and grow, gaining confidence, expanding life experiences, etc., etc., etc. They are really saying this in recognition of all of the teachers, and when I reply, I think I am speaking for most of them:
No.
Thank you for what your children are doing- for me.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 30th Infantry Division, 743rd Tank Battalion, Bergen Belsen, Bergen Belsen Memorial, concentration camps, education, Farsleben, Hillersleben, history, history education, Holocaust, Holocaust survivor-liberator reunion, Holocaust Survivors, Liberators, narrative history, oral history, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, World War II, World War II Living History Project on September 20, 2012| 3 Comments »
I am re-posting this on the anniversary of a car crash that would claim the life of Holocaust survivor and later U.S. Army Ranger, Steve Barry.
My friend on the left described himself at one point in his life as the “Happiest Korean War Draftee”. Steve was a survivor from Hungary who beat the odds and lived through the horrors of the Holocaust after the Germans invaded that country in 1944 and did their best to kill him on several occasions. He spent his 20th birthday jammed in a boxcar destined for Bergen Belsen, witnessed people dying of starvation and disease by the thousands, and was liberated on April 13th, 1945 at the hands of the 743rd Tank Battalion and the 30th Infantry Division of the US 9th Army, aboard the train near Magdeburg. He emigrated to the United States in Dec. 1948 after spending years in a displaced persons camp, applied for citizenship immediately, and was drafted in 1950, only to be assigned occupation duty in a far off nation- you guessed it-Germany. He was so happy to serve his adopted country…
Steve passed away yesterday, January 16th, 2012, after a long and difficult ordeal from injuries sustained in an automobile accident in September. I’ll always remember his special Christmas and Easter cards that he sent to me, made personally on his computer; his funny, self depreciating humor; and above all his overwhelming happiness at being able to finally meet the men who saved him. I hope that the memories sustain his wife Stella and his children and their families, and also the friends that he made later in life and became soulmates with- soldiers Carrol Walsh and Frank Towers, the soldiers who arrived on the scene to free him and help him begin his life anew.
Matthew Rozell, Stephen Barry, National DOR Ceremony, Washington, DC April 2010. This photo was taken the day after the 65th anniversary of Steve’s liberation in April 1945. We had just been honored by the director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum before the national ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda.
I will leave you with a few of his words-and we will remember. Thanks, Steve, for all that you gave us, and for passing the torch to a new generation of students to carry your message forth.
An earlier post… The Holocaust Survivor and the US Army Ranger…
A fantastic national radio interview that I helped to arrange, knowing he would be the perfect speaker…
And the educational films I constructed from them.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 30th Infantry Division, 743rd Tank Battalion, 95th Medical Battalion, Bergen Belsen, Bergen Belsen Memorial, concentration camps, education, Farsleben, Hillersleben, history, history education, Holocaust, Holocaust survivor-liberator reunion, Holocaust Survivors, Liberators, Luca Furnari, Matthew Rozell, narrative history, oral history, World War II, World War II Living History Project on May 11, 2012| 3 Comments »
Dear Mr. Rozell,
Hilersleben -Luca Furnari
My grandfather, Luca Furnari, is 90 years old and served in the 95th medical battalion with Mr. Gantz at Hillersleben. He has a number of photographs from this period. For many years he has thought about trying to find a particular young girl who he helped sneak extra rations to at the DP camp and whose mother asked him to take back to the United States. He and some friends actually had a whole plan of how they were going to sneak her onto the boat back to the US, it’s a great story. Unfortunately, as you know, they were told they were going to the Pacific theatre and the plan became impossible. Her name was Irene / Iren / Irena. I have a photograph and have searched the manifest on your website, there are 3 possible people of approximately the right ages: Irena Gitler, Iren Roth and Iren Wittels. I was wondering if you had come across any survivors from Hillersleben with the same name.
Hilersleben-Irene is in the flowered dress
Also, I know my grandfather would love to be connected to any other surviving members from the US Army that were at Hillersleben.
My grandfather is the large picture on the left hand side. Irene is in the flowered dress in the picture by herself and on the lap of another US soldier, whose name is Turner (?). The picture with the baby is also Turner, and they are in the DP camp. My grandfather’s inscription reads
Hilersleben-Turner-boy that kid sure did cry that day — until we gave her some chocolate.
“boy that kid sure did cry that day — until we gave her some chocolate”. The picture of the building with barrels in the foreground is from Hillersleben too. It has a strange inscription from my grandfather
Hilersleben-some disorderly DPs getting a shower bath (DDT?)
“some disorderly DPs getting a shower bath”. The one with the two girls just says “Two of the children that lived in the D.P. center we were taking care of. Cute eh hon?” (He was sending the pictures to my grandmother back in the States.)
The child Irene is the girl that my grandfather would like to try to locate.
Soldier Turner and Irene.
Any help you can provide is MOST appreciated.
Best,
R.
Hilersleben-Two of the children that lived in the D.P. center we were taking care of. Cute eh hon?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Boxcars of Dead at Dachau, concentration camps, Dachau, education, Hillersleben, history, history education, Hitler's Hat, Holocaust, Holocaust survivor-liberator reunion, Holocaust Survivors, Liberators, narrative history, oral history, Richard Marowitz, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, World War II, World War II Living History Project on April 26, 2012|
“On April 30, 1945, Jewish-American G.I. Richard Marowitz stormed into Hitler’s bedroom looking for anything he could bring back to headquarters.
Richard Marowitz of Albany , NY was on the scene for the liberation of Dachau. The following day he was at Hitler’s villa in Munich. Here is his story as told to Matthew Rozell and a group of students at Hudson Falls High School ten years ago. Marowitz is a Jewish war veteran. Read the postscript to learn more about Hitler’s hat.
Richard M. Marowitz-42nd Rainbow Division-
The Liberation of Dachau
–interviewed at Hudson Falls High School.
On the 29th of April 1945, my platoon was called into the command post, we were in a little village, I don’t remember the name of it, but it was probably about 25-30 miles from Dachau. We were given new maps which showed Dachau, and we were told that the 20th Armored were already on the road to Dachau and our job was to take off and get to the tail end of the 20th Armored and be liaison between the 20th Armored and the infantry that would be coming down behind us in two and a half ton trucks, which is kind of idiotic but that’s the way the army was. The reason for that was we were having a race with the 3rd Division on one side of us, and the 45th Division on the other side of us, and they wanted the 42nd to win the race. So we took off on the road going very quickly like we usually do – if we came to a tree, the woods, or a village, we would stop and reconnoiter and find out if it was ok to go through without getting killed – and we kept getting pushed on the radio, ‘where are you,’ ‘what are your Greek coordinates,’ and ‘what’s taking so long? We are going to lose the race.’ After awhile of this kind of nonsense, Lieutenant Short stopped us and he said we to have to make a choice, either we’re going to have to step on the gas and go like hell and let surprise be on our side, or we’re going to lose the race and then everybody is going to get mad at us. So we decided to step on the gas and go like hell, which is what we did. In the process, we ran into a whole lot of little hornet’s nests – it would have made a movie you wouldn’t have believed anyways – for example, we cut a German convoy in half that was going across a road that we were on, firing as we went through they didn’t know what happened because we weren’t supposed to be there and they were driving off the road. We did the same thing with another convoy that was going on a road in the opposite direction and parallel to ours, and we just fired on them as we went. We came upon a village, and somebody fired on us and we went up on a small knoll next to the road and we dragged all the junk we had accumulated on the bottom of our jeeps like bazookas, mortars, etc. We fired on them and they probably thought they hit the front of the division. There’s no way they could’ve assumed it was only 28 men. Lieutenant Short stood up, honest to God, he actually said this: “Three men assault the town.” Three of us went in, Larry, myself and Howard Hughes, that’s his real name – great BAR man, Browning automatic rifle …and we claimed the first few houses, we accumulated 160, 170, 180 prisoners who looked around expecting to find more of us. We broke up their weapons, told them to put their hands on their heads and walk back up the road. They looked at us like were crazy; we looked back like we weren’t. We went through another village and a German fired a panzerfaust, which is like a German bazooka, it landed on the other side of us and blew us out of the jeep. We dispatched quickly and we got back in the jeep and took off again. These are the kinds of things that happened on the way to Dachau.
When we got close to Dachau, you see there are a lot of smells in war, you smell the death smell all the time, but it’s usually farm animals who were rotting in the fields who were killed, rotting or whatever. As we got closer to Dachau, we got this awful smell and we assumed it was farm animals, that we were going to pass a farm, or whatever. We finally got to the outskirts of Dachau and were pinned down. Dachau was a favorite camp of the Germans, their first major camp, it was in Germany. They didn’t want to give it up the other camps were walkovers. The Germans just left them, and that was it. But in this case at Dachau, they didn’t want to give it up too easily, there were a lot of SS guys around. They were dropping some SS on us, and a lot of snipers – at one point an American tank came out of Dachau. We were stuck in the ditch at that point, we stood up and realized we made a mistake when the gun came down on us – but at that instant, an American tank destroyer came up behind us and blew the tank away. It happened to be an American tank that had been captured by the Germans and the guys in the tank destroyer knew that we didn’t have any tanks in there so therefore it had to be a captured tank. I kissed a tank destroyer that day.
At that point, they told us to clean out the snipers and then proceeded to go into the camp. At the outskirts of that camp, we went into a house – we banged on it, it was like a little small farm on the outskirts. The door opened and there was a mother, a father, a daughter and a dog. The mother had buckteeth, the father had buckteeth, the daughter had buckteeth, and when I looked down and saw that the dog had buckteeth, I was just hysterical. It was the funniest sight, I was tense you know, and I could use anything at that point for a laugh. Of course the other guys looked at me like I was nuts! Anyway, we did find some snipers – one we did away with that was firing away from a house nearby. After we silenced him, we went up to see who it was. He was eleven or twelve years old, one of the Hitler youth, who were actually worse than the SS. They were just so brainwashed … we ran into a lot of those kids in their short pants.
On the siding, you saw pictures of it in the slides, outside of the camp, adjacent to the camp, there were actually forty boxcars of bodies and
American soldiers of the U.S. 7th Army, force boys believed to be Hitler youth, to examine boxcars containing bodies of prisoners starved to death by the SS. USHMM
we found one man alive in that forty…there are some pictures of that one man, I don’t know whether he survived or not. The prisoners were just walking skeletons, and they just dropped where they were and died. There were piles of bodies, of bodies that had been gassed and readied for the ovens. Some of them still lived because those boxcars were brought to Dachau to burn those bodies. It was a total mess. And the smell was not a farm; it was Dachau that we had smelled miles before we got there. And yet, people in the village who were right next to the camps said they didn’t know what was going on. People in Munich, which was actually only nine miles from Dachau, didn’t know what was going on. Now if you want to believe that, the Brooklyn Bridge is still for sale.
I never went back and I don’t intend to, I don’t feel like I want to. But it is almost impossible to describe the feelings, so I’m not going to try. But when you looked around some of these tough soldiers were throwing up and crying all over the place. It is not possible to really describe the number of feelings you get when you walk into something like that. Because that’s a scene that … well, first of all nobody told us about the camp! We had no idea what a concentration camp did. We were going to Dachau, period. It was another village as far as we were concerned. That’s kind of a shock to get all at one time.
Interview recorded on May 3, 2002.
See Rich and I in a 2014 NBC LEARN video here.
POSTSCRIPT:
“On April 29, 1945, the 42nd Rainbow Division 222nd I&R platoon entered the gates of Dachau. One of many units sent to liberate the death camp, they saw first-hand the horrors of Hitler’s death machine.
The next day, 12 men of the I&R were ordered to search Adolph Hitler’s Munich apartment for military intelligence. Jewish-American G.I. Richard Marowitz, self-appointed wiseacre of the unit, stormed into Hitler’s bedroom looking for anything he could bring back to headquarters.
All he found was a black top hat.
Still angered by what he had seen at Dachau, Marowitz flew into a rage and jumped on the hat, crushing it, imagining Hitler’s head still inside. Then Marowitz, known for his comic antics even under stress, put Hitler’s 
crushed hat on his head and marched through the apartment with his best imitation of Charlie Chaplin doing Hitler from The Great Dictator. Tense from the day before, the I&R unit cracked up. Years later Marowitz found out that the same day he stomped Hitler’s hat, the Führer committed suicide in his bunker.
Marowitz returned home to Albany, N.Y., with the ultimate war souvenir stuffed into his duffel bag. He became a clothing manufacturer and professional magician and rarely talked about his war experiences. For the next 50 years, Hitler’s hat fittingly sat in a brown paper bag, buried at the bottom of his magic trick closet.
Following Marowitz to a Rainbow Division reunion, Hitler’s Hat interviews his I&R unit buddies to retell the story of Hitler’s hat. Daring and innovative, the documentary presents a rare mix of humor and history in an original take on World War II.”
“The Story of Hitler’s Hat”, http://www.jeffkrulik.com/hitlershat/index.html
Teaching History Matters 
