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Posts Tagged ‘Matthew Rozell’

Woodstock event remembers Holocaust.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 1, 2013|

Woodstock event remembers Holocaust

WOODSTOCK, N.Y. — A Yom Hashoah event that will remember the Holocaust will take place April 7 at 3 p.m. at the Woodstock Jewish Congregation, 1682 Glasco Turnpike, Woodstock NY, 12498.

Synagogue Main Number (845) 679-2218
Email info@wjcshul.org
Persons of all faiths are welcome.

The Yom Hashoah  observance will include a candlelight memorial service, followed by an address by Matthew Rozell titled “Honoring the Hour of Liberation and Defeating the Legacy of Hitler.” Rozell is the founder of a project that has reunited survivors from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp with the U.S. soldiers who liberated them from a train transport during the closing days of World War II. To date, with the help of Varda Weisskopf and Frank Towers, more than 240 survivors worldwide have been located, and 10 reunions have taken place since 2007. Rozell is also a teaching fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and has spoken on behalf of its educational programs. His work can be seen at teachinghistorymatters.wordpress.com.

The ABC News video can be seen here.

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he has a dramatic way of proving his point.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 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?

Matthew Rozell 12-12 American Spirit magazine

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.

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It’s what we do.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 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.

http://itswhatwedo.nysut.org/

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.

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Kids at the DP camp Hilersleben. Irene.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 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?

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Whitwell.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2012| 1 Comment »

Whitwell, Tennessee.

Not much cultural diversity. 50% free and reduced lunch. Industry supporting then devastating the community, then leaving town. Home of the Tigers… sound familiar, Hudson Falls?

Last fall Hudson Falls kids and I had the pleasure of getting to know Joe Fab, the major moving force behind the film  Paper Clips, when he came to our town to speak.On Tuesday morning this week, a few educators and I  loaded into  cars for a pleasant drive from Nashville to Whitwell, to visit the middle school where it all began, and their Children’s Holocaust Memorial, a cattle car from Germany that was used to carry human beings to the killing centers.

The middle school is in  a new building that also houses a special Holocaust Memorial library, which is thought to be the largest single collection in the state, many volumes donated by survivors and congregations worldwide. Every letter they ever received is archived there, including the negative ones that arrived with the paper clips twisted into swastikas. Imagine. Middle school kids not picking and choosing what to save, but archiving like historians for the future.

Linda Hooper, the former principal, greeted the nine of us, and gave us a private talk about the impact of the project and the unbelievable ripple effect it has had on people’s lives across the world. Sandy Roberts told us how the project unfolded in her after school class, when a child raised his hand to say, “Mrs. Roberts, excuse me, but I don’t know what six million is.” Because they took the time to investigate together, students and parents reflected together in a meaningful way on the impact of learning about the Holocaust on their lives. And that is how this project was born.

Before we move to criticize the project as just another counting activity, the collecting and counting of objects to symbolize human life, come to Whitwell and meet the people. Read the letters from the survivors who send in a paper clip, or dozens, and reach out to these children who have touched them enough to tell their families’ stories.

No one can fathom six million plus. But read the letters to feel for yourself individual stories of the millions who were lost. Come to Whitwell and see for yourself the power of a small community excited about learning, and its impact on the world, because they wanted to care about other human beings.

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So, I am suspicious of education.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 2, 2012| 2 Comments »


Israeli educational psychologist Haim Ginott writes about a letter that teachers would receive from their principal each year:

I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no person should witness: gas chambers built by learned engineers. Children poisoned by educated physicians. Infants killed by trained nurses. Women and babies shot by high school and college graduates.

So, I am suspicious of education.

My request is this:  Help your children become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths or educated Eichmanns. Reading, writing, and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.

This has become the mission statement and educational philosophy of some Holocaust education institutions and it really sums up what my mission as  a teacher is all about. But please note  below that I did not intend it that way. At all.

Today I will be a special guest for the Tennessee Days of Remembrance Ceremony at the State Capitol in Nashville with legislative members, the governor and the lieutenant governor. This evening I will give my first address to fellow Holocaust educators.

How does a kid from a small town with no experience in Holocaust education go on to add a new chapters to the stories of thousands of persons’ lives? To become a regarded figure in Holocaust and History education circles, nationwide?

The honest answer is, I just don’t know.

My dad in the classroom. Around the time that I puffed out my chest and claimed I certainly would not be a teacher.

But it happened. This from a kid who distinctly remembers the purposeful slight given to his dad. Dad was a history teacher in Glens Falls, the next town over. He was good, and he loved the students. Everyday he came home happy and sometimes even humming a tune. Who delivered the purposeful slight? His first born son.

Our relationship,  as I grew into the teenage years, was a bit strained. So when he asked me, as a junior or senior,  in the car riding home from school one day down Main Street, the MAIN STREET of the town that produced him, what I would like to do someday after I graduated from high school, I told him, “I don’t know, but I won’t be in HUDSON FALLS anymore, and I SURE WON’T BE A TEACHER…..”- the desired effect was achieved by the angry teen, the wound deep, the twist of the knife distinct…

Yet there I was, eight years later, living in the room out back of the family homestead on that Main Street, fending my way on the other side of the desk in the classroom of my alma mater, and not just any classroom- a history classroom, teaching the exact same subject as the old man…

What if I had never come home, as planned? What if I had not gone back to school for a teaching certificate, after graduating with that “unmarketable” history degree? What if I had landed that job in the college town I called my new home, instead if coming in 2nd for it? I would have never met the tank commanders. Then, what if Walsh’s daughter had not said, after two exhausting hours of combat tales, just as we were about to turn the camera off,   “Dad, did you tell Mr. Rozell about the train? ”

Things happen for a reason. I think there are no coincidences.

In the words of a former  principal of mine, we are here “to make human beings out of them” (not that they were not before, but you get his point-the exact same point of the speaker noted above.)

I am suspicious of those who will dictate to me from ” on high” what I should be doing in the classroom. Perhaps Dr.  Ginott would have agreed.

 

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I was reminded of the words of the prophet Ezekiel-“He took me down in the spirit of G-d and set me down in the valley. It was full of bones.”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 28, 2012| 1 Comment »

I interviewed a Holocaust refugee and another liberator on Friday last… rolled into one! A special man. A German Jew whose father was mortally injured on Kristalnacht, Henry Birnbrey was sponsored and got out of Germany as a young teen and was given special permission from FDR to join the Army-previously classified “enemy alien” for his German birth- and stumbled upon the train as a forward artillery spotter scouting positions in the lead up to the final battle at Magdeburg.  Henry was in the 531st AAA of the 30th Infantry Division- Survivor Steve Barry mentions forward artillery spotters in his memoirs- and Henry was one of them. Much of what follows is his testimony as given to the Breman Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, interspersed with his memories as privately published in  his war memoirs.

I was born in Dortmund, Germany in 1923. During 1937 and 1938 my parents made applications for me to emigrate to Palestine, New Zealand and the USA. The USA visa came in first and an emergency visa was issued to me the week Hitler invaded Austria, as the various agencies feared that this invasion would be followed by war.

I left Germany on March 31, 1938, leaving my parents behind. In the meanwhile, my father had already been arrested. He was accused of having made statements against the government. He was released with the promise to abandon his business and livelihood. Consequently, we lived without income during the years 1937 and 1938. After I left Germany, my father was picked up again on Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938) and he died a couple of months later from the wounds received when he was picked up and arrested. My mother died a few months later. The death certificate of my father stated the cause of death as “heart failure” and only in 1999 did I finally locate the documents that verified what happened in 1938, but too late to entitle me to compensation, which had been denied because their records showed a natural death.

The Birmingham Section of the council of Jewish Women sponsored my immigration to the US, and the social services were provided by the Jewish Children Service here in Atlanta. I moved to Atlanta in January 1939. In Birmingham and Atlanta I lived in foster homes.

I supported myself by working in a clothing store, later managing a shoe store, and in 1942 I went to work for a local accountant. In 1943 I joined the US Army. In 1944 I was with the Normandy invasion forces. During my service in the army, but towards the end of the war, I came across  a train of cattle cars full of Jewish concentration camp survivors and people who did not survive. We opened the cars and were shocked to see the condition of the occupants of these cattle cars. During this same week as we were advancing toward the Oder River, we passed ditches full of corpses of concentration camp inmates who had been marched to the West to escape the Russian advance. Around April 1945, I became a counter intelligence agent and interrogated German POWs and citizens.

After the war, I found out that most of my family had perished in the concentration camps. My mother was one of ten children, and out of that family, two first cousins survived. These cousins had made aliyah in 1937. My father was one of three brothers and again, two first cousins survived. One had made aliyah to Israel in 1938 and the other one survived behind the Iron Curtain. The rest of the family perished. I found documents in the Berlin archive that showed when these people were born and when they died. What I was not prepared for was the detail of information which included the place they were assembled, the number of the transport which took them to the concentration camp and all sort of sordid details.

Henry continues: During World War II, I wanted to get to our hometown but I could not because the British Army was over there and we were a little bit south of there, but my experience as a soldier I think is worth mentioning. First of all, we were in the neighborhood of Magdeburg on reconnaissance. And we had, we had this horrible odor. We didn’t know what was happening. And it turned out to be one of the freight trains full of Jews being shipped from one concentration camp to another. And therefore I was able to personally witness this terrible inhumanity that was taking place. And all of these were my fellow Jews and brothers and everything else. They were almost, they had been reduced to such a non-human state it was impossible to communicate with them. I mean, all we could do is to try to get them food and ask for help. There was nothing we could do. These people were half dead, half crazy. I mean they’d been locked in these cars, were lying on the floor. It was just a horrible thing to witness, and something I’ll never forget as long as I live.

http://www.thebreman.org

And from Henry’s memoirs…. skeptics note again a liberator describing “walking skeletons” ….We moved on to the Braunschweig (Brunswick) area. Here, along the highway, we encountered ditches full of dead concentration camp prisoners who had been marched from one camp to another and were shot before they had a chance to be liberated.
…In April of 1945 while on reconnaissance near Magdeburg we encountered a horrible odor. As we got closer we discovered an abandoned train of cattle cars. When we opened the cars they were filled with half dead and dead Jews being transported from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to another camp. The sub-human conditions to which these people were subjected to had reduced them to a very sorry state. We did not know how long they had been in those cars, they looked like walking skeletons and could barely speak. Unfortunately we had no food to share with them, which gave us a very helpless feeling. When headquarters was notified, someone evacuated all German civilians from a nearby village, Hillersleben and turned this village into a hospital. Unfortunately we could not stay around to learn more, to speak to and encourage these people or perform other deeds of human kindness…I was reminded of the words of the prophet Ezekiel-”He took me down in the spirit of G-d and set me down in the valley. It was full of bones.”

…and this is where I (MR) am trying to put the pieces of the story together….

 

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Stories of Freedom: An Evening at CitiField

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 28, 2010| 2 Comments »

I was the featured speaker at this event hosted by the NYC Next Generation Board held on July 28th, 2010 at CitiField  in NYC. I spoke about this project and on behalf of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Teacher Fellowship Program.

Good evening and thank you for your welcome. I would like to thank the Next Generation Board and staff for having me here this evening.

As you have just heard, I am particularly devoted to the mission of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Teacher Fellowship program. In April I was honored to be in Washington, DC with these fine veterans at the Days of Remembrance ceremonies with over 100 other liberators. Tonight I would like to present you with some snapshots of the people I have encountered in my work, and how the ripple effect has led to these worldwide connections. I also think it is important to place my work in the context of the Museum’s mission and to place it in a perspective that illustrates why we are all gathered here this evening.

As Ms. Sawyer explained, this endeavor began as a simple oral history project and it has now taken on a life of its own. The photograph on the screen was taken by Major Clarence Benjamin and is one of the most dramatic liberation photographs ever to come to light. What is unique about this and the other ten liberator photographs is that we have now identified several persons who are still living. They in turn contact other survivors and their families. Some just stumble across my website. On Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, April 12th, a major Israeli daily that reaches a quarter million households ran a lead story; here in NY the newspaper Hamodia ran an article that reached 50,000 in January. This has multiplied the ripple effect; to date, we have uncovered 165 survivors who were aboard that train near Magdeburg Germany.

Right now, rescuing the evidence is my main mission. There are so many lessons here – lessons of self-sacrifice and duty, of courage and kindness, but also of horror, cruelty and sorrow.  This war brought out the worst in people and it brought out the best of people. And when you look at this mini snapshot of time, you see it all. In the end, good triumphs over evil.

Here are some sample vignettes from my work with the testimony of survivors I know, and this is just scratching the surface. Here they recall the moment of liberation at the hands of the Americans.

Jacob, a four year old boy, has very vivid memories of recalling that this was the first time in his young life that he ever saw an adult smile. He also recalls an angry American major cocking his .45 and putting it to the head of a burgermiester who was reluctant to order the neighboring townspeople to provide shelter and food for the starving victims, a story which has been corroborated by many survivors.

Ina, a seventeen year old Dutch Jew, remembered the straight white teeth of her liberators and thinking in her famished and confused state that they all must have had the same dentist.

Bob, a fifteen year old, recalled hearing somebody fiddling with the lock on the railcar door and sliding it open. They were soldiers with Red Cross armbands who were shocked as the bodies tumbled out on top of them. QUOTE “The degree of shock, their shock, surprise, questioning on their faces-Where did these people come from? How did this happen? But within a few minutes this combination of emotions got transferred into the demonstration of concern, care, interest, a demonstration of wish, and good intentions, which was conspicuously demonstrated to each and every one of us. Before I realized just what was happening, the strong arms of that young man with the white armband grabbed me- I don’t know why, he probably didn’t know how many lice I had on my skull-He pulled me out of that car and then the other soldiers started pulling guys out of it. ”

21 year old Steve, who celebrated his 20th birthday freezing in a locked boxcar in early Dec. 1944  on the way to Bergen Belsen, recalled sitting on the embankment the evening before the liberation and  watching the Allied carpet bombing of Magdeburg and hoping that the bombs would fall on him. QUOTE  ” The next morning, we had this tiny little fire going and we were sitting next to it and I was sitting there with this great big abandoned SS overcoat on, to keep warm.  One GI walked down the embankment, came over to the fire, sat next to me, took out his pen knife, and he cut off the SS insignia from my coat, and slowly dropped it into the fire…”

Micha, a six year old boy from Poland, remembers visits to the house where he and his mom were quartered by a huge black American soldier who constantly smiled, bringing him chocolate, which he had never tasted before.

Matthew Rozell at CitiField event, July 28, 2010. USHMM photo.

Several of these child survivors have told me that they recall the camp in shades of gray and black and white, but they remember the liberation in vivid Technicolor. Elisabeth from Holland: “I got out of the train and I saw the greenery and the wild flowers. It was wonderful because suddenly I was seeing things in color. Everything that I’d remembered about the camp was black and white…”

Most recently, this was confirmed once more by this woman, a little girl who had been an orphan in Bergen Belsen. Back in Israel where she lives, she got a phone call from the daughter of another survivor who had tracked her down. Lily got a call as she was cooking dinner at home for her extended family in Tel Aviv last March, and was completely shocked as she knew very little of the details of her early life. She did immediately decide to travel to the United States to meet me, and came up here about a month ago. Lily’s father had been shot in the Warsaw ghetto and her mother died in Belsen shortly after their arrival. She was “purchased” with bread rations from a man who she had been entrusted to but who was actually neglecting her, and then she was cared for by a series of women whose faces and names she cannot recall. Eventually she was taken to Israel and raise on a kibbutz, and when she met me; she confided that she did not even know her birth date. She did remember the liberation, that all these young soldiers were chewing gum and gave her her first chocolates. I then arranged for her to have an interview at the Museum, and she called me up, very excitedly after the fact to say that she was received very well, and that her interviewer even had done research in the archives before she had gotten there and was able to tell her the day she was born…June 15th. As she and many others have told me, her family is proof that Hitler did not win.

I’d like to think that this project has done a great deal to undo Hitler’s legacy. The ripple effect of that we spoke of is reaching many thousands of lives- liberators, survivors, their children and grandchildren, and generations to come.  In perspective, though, we have to understand that for every soul saved on the train, another 2500 perished during the Holocaust.

Just as importantly, the project has touch thousands of students. You see, one of the points that I stress is that now these students become the new witnesses, just as you are also here to hopefully help us to carry the ripple forward to the future generations. I point out to the kids that they have a responsibility now to use what they have witnessed, and I show them the Holocaust denial website that is out there specifically devoted to the refuting of my story. It’s still out there, and ignoring it is not going to go make it go away.

I have talked to plenty of my peers who did not really learn about the Holocaust in own their days in the classroom, and who really have difficulty grasping how to teach it effectively. There is a lot more to teaching about the Holocaust than collecting bottle caps or counting pull tabs in a crate. Realistically, only a handful can bring their students to the Museum in Washington, but what we have to realize is that this Museum is much more than a brick and mortar building. As was previously mentioned, the Museum Teacher Fellowship program has developed into cutting edge national outreach to nurture Holocaust education in this nation, but a lot more needs to be done. Last year the Education Division reached 5000 teachers across the nation, and the good news is that the ripple effect means that if each committed teacher reaches 100 students over the course of ten years or so, we have now carried the message to fifty thousand kids.  In perspective, however, we have to keep in mind that there are at least 14 million secondary school students in the United States. But just imagine the potential of a program where even more highly qualified and committed MTF teachers could be trained to reach 100 or more fellow teachers over the years!

People often ask me how my work as an MTF impacts students. For a long time I really struggled with this question-I myself have never taken students on a field trip to the Museum-until last month when a reporter for my college alumni magazine showed up in town to find out.

“He puts history right in front of your eyes,” one of my students said. “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.”

My friends, these high school kids now know that what they do matters, and whatever we can do to support these programs will pay dividends later. Now I can say truly that my getting up and going to work each day makes a difference. And now like them, when it comes down to what really matters, I just can’t be a bystander.

Thank you for your attention and I hope that you enjoy the game.

28 July, 2010 the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s New York Next Generation Citi Field event to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps.

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Holocaust Survivors, Liberators Reunited – ABC News : Person of the Week: Teacher takes students on a journey of humanity.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 26, 2009| 23 Comments »

I’m a teacher.

This blog is about the Power of Teaching.

If you decide to spend a few moments here, you will see what I mean…

Start by studying the photograph below.

I mean, click on it to enlarge, really look at it.

Study the faces.

Imagine being the man behind the lens…

Matthew Rozell

Enter a caption

You may be here to find out more about the photograph that shows the moment of liberation. Watch the ABC News clip below about how I was first shown it by US Army veterans of World War II, the story they told me, and what I did afterwards, and the consequences of those actions.

[My new book on this will be out this July. You can put in a pre-order notice, above- GET THE BOOK HERE]

It is nothing short of a miracle.

Then again, in the words of one survivor, there are no coincidences.

Feel free to contact me or re-post this website.

Sign up for amazing updates on the upper right.

Do you know that nearly 250 survivors of this train transport have now had contact with their actual American liberators? It’s true. There are 10 other photos of the liberation that day on this site, and many folks have been identified.

Feel free to explore. Thanks for stopping by.

Matt

During our second Holocaust survivor/American soldier reunion, we reached out to a student audience of 1500 kids over three days. Just before the final farewell  banquet  the ABC piece below aired, and the soldiers, survivors, teachers and students watched it together in a restaurant lounge.

Not a dry eye!

Matthew Rozell

Official ABC site and video

THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTOGRAPH

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