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You have blessed me, friends, and I thank you deeply.

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 February 1, 2019| 1 Comment »

George Gross, former tank commander in Company D of the 743rd Tank Battalion, died ten years ago today. In his declining years before he died, I was able to bring him much joy in introducing him to several of the children he saved. He sent me the photographs, and wanted me to tell his story. And I brought him together again with his old Army buddy, Red Walsh. So I am re-posting this today on the 10th anniversary of Dr. Gross’ death.

Where does the time go? He lived a good life, and at the end, got to see the results of his actions six decades before.

We are all traveling our own roads. Days like this, I like to stop and ponder what it all means. I’m glad that I had a small role to play in his life.

~George C. Gross, 1922-2009~

Yesterday my son turned 11. And at about 11 pm yesterday on the West Coast, Dr. Gross died at home with his family around him.

I just found out. More than anyone else, he is the one responsible for this website and the hundreds of lives changed because of it.

You see, he took the photo that you may not really notice in the heading above, along with 9 other photographs that forever imprint the evidence not only of man’s inhumanity to man, but of the affirmation, hope and promise of mankind. It was he who wrote the prose that led me to the survivors, and vice versa. And it was he who cultivated a deep friendship with me via his wonderful writings and telephone conversation. How amazed and happy he seemed to be to hear from all the survivors.

In the summer of 2001, I did an interview with his comrade in arms, army buddy Carrol Walsh. Judge Walsh put me in touch with Dr. Gross. If you go back through the archives you know the rest of the story. It has changed my life and the lives of my students in that we are now trying to rescue the evidence, the testimony of the Holocaust and the World War Two veterans, for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. And today I received in the mail a bulletin from this Museum, reaffirming the mission that Dr. Gross had everything to do with setting me on.

He came into my life during a dark time for me- we had just lost our father (who thankfully, like Dr. Gross, passed on from his own bed at home), and our mother was battling the final stages of Alzheimer’s disease, or dementia, or whatever that nightmare was called…. we began a conversation that has yielded so much fruit.

Lately, I knew he wasn’t well. I actually had looked into flights across the country before Christmas for my son and I to pay a visit, but we just couldn’t seem to swing it financially, with Christmas bills coming in and holiday fares going up. My back up plan, in my head, was to go out in February, when fares were half the cost… Well, February arrived yesterday and now it is too late, I never got to shake the hand of a man who helped reshape my own life, and the lives of so many others.

His 8×10 liberation photos are mounted in the front of my classroom, with his captions for all to see. So I see George and just one of the noteworthy products of his life, everyday. The captions that he wrote for each are mounted below each print, a testament to his humanity and to his graciousness.

I know it is selfish to feel so bad about the fact that I was not able to literally reach out and touch him. I’m just so damned disappointed. Right now it’s another dark day for Matt, but I am comforted that he was surely welcomed by his beloved wife, parents, and maybe even my folks as well.

From his statement read at the occasion of the first reunion, September 14th, 2007.

Sincere greetings to all of you gathered at this celebration of the indomitable spirit of mankind!

Greetings first 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 your 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.

You have vowed that the world will never forget the horrors of the Holocaust, and you spread the message by giving interviews, visiting schools, writing memoirs, and publishing powerful books on the evil that infected Nazi Germany and threatens still to infect the world. I am enriched by the friendship of such courageous people who somehow have maintained a healthy sense of humor and a desire to serve through all the evils inflicted upon you.

Greetings also to the dedicated teacher whose efforts have brought us all together through the classes he has taught on World War 2 and the web site he maintains at the cost of hours of time not easily found in his duty as a high school teacher. I know that several of you found your quest for knowledge of your past rewarded by the interviews and pictures Matt Rozell and his classes have gathered and maintained. Selfishly, I am grateful to Mr. Rozell for leading several of you to me, bringing added joy to my retiring years.

Greetings also to all the faculty, staff, students, parents, and friends of the school at which this important gathering takes place. Thank you for your interest in the survivors of the Holocaust and their message.

And special greetings also to my old Army buddy, Judge Carrol Walsh, and his great family. Carrol fought many battles beside me, saved my life and sanity, and resuscitated my sense of humor often. We had just finished a grueling three weeks of fighting across Germany, moving twenty or more hours per day, rushing on to reach the Elbe River. Carrol and I were again side by side as we came up to the train with Major Benjamin, chased the remaining German guards away, and declared the train and its captives free members of society under the protection of the United States Army as represented by two light tanks.

Unfortunately, Carrol was soon ordered back to the column on its way to Magdeburg while, luckily for me, I was assigned to stay overnight with the train, to let any stray German soldiers know that it was part of the free world and not to be bothered again.

Carrol missed much heartbreaking and heartwarming experience as I met the people of the train. I was shocked to see the half-starved bodies of young children and their mothers and old men—all sent by the Nazis on their way to extermination.

I was honored to shake the hands of the large numbers who spontaneously lined up in orderly single file to introduce themselves and greet me in a ritual that seemed to satisfy their need to declare their return to honored membership in the free society of humanity.

I was heartbroken that I could do nothing to satisfy their need for food that night, but I was assured that other units were taking care of that and the problem of housing so many free people.

Sixty years later, I was pleased to hear that the Army did well in caring for their new colleagues in the battle for freedom. I saw many mothers protecting their little ones as best they could, and pushing them out, as proud mothers will, to be photographed. I was surprised and please by the smiles I saw on so many young faces.

Some of you have found yourselves among those pictured children, 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 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 and getting to know Matt Rozell and Carrol Walsh. I look forward to seeing again my friends whom I have met and to meeting the rest of you either in person or by E-mail. 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

September, 2007

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I’ll be in a better frame of mind tomorrow.

April 17, 1945, was a Sunday. It was three days after the liberation of the train near Magdeburg, near the Elbe River, just miles from Berlin. War weary GIs had their first encounters with the conditions at the train. They would never forget what they saw.

April 17^th. (1945)

Dear Chaplain;-

Haven’t written you in many months now, its funny how a few moments are so hard to find in which to write a letter way past due; it’s much easier to keep putting it off the way I’ve done. I’ll try to make up for it in this letter.

Today I saw a sight that’s impossible to describe, however I’ll try. Between 2400 and 3000 German refugees were overran by my division during our last operation; most of them were, or had been, inmates of concentration camps, their crimes the usual ones, – Jewish parentage, political differences with der Fuhrer, lack of sympathy for the SS, or just plain bad luck. Not one of these hundreds could walk one mile and survive; they had been packed on a train whose normal capacity was perhaps four or five hundred, and had been left there days without food.

Our division military government unit took charge of them, and immediately saw what a huge job it was going to be, so they sent out a call for help. Several of our officers went out to help them organize the camp they were setting up for them. The situation was extremely ticklish we soon learned; no one could smoke as it started a riot when the refugees saw the cigarette, and we couldn’t give the kiddies anything or they would have been trampled to death in the rush that would result when anything resembling food was displayed. The only nourishment they were capable of eating was soup; now the army doesn’t issue any of the Heinz’s 57 varieties, so we watered down C-ration[s] and it served quite well. It was necessary to use force to make the people stay in line in order to serve them. They had no will power left, only the characteristics of beasts.

A few weeks of decent food will change them into a semblance of normal human beings; with God willing the plague of disease that was already underway, will be diverted; but I’m wondering what the affect of their ordeal they have been through, will be on their minds; most will carry scars for the rest of their days for the beatings that they were given. No other single thing had convinced me as this experience has that Germany isn’t fit to survive as a nation. I’ll never forget today.

I was going to write mother tonight but thought better of it. I’ll be in a better frame of mind tomorrow. I’m only a few dozen miles from Berlin right now, and its hard to realize the end is in sight. I’m always glad to receive your scandal sheet. You perhaps missed your calling, as your editorial abilities are quite plain.

As ever,

Charles.

March 11th, 2009

Dear Mr. Rozell: My father-in-law was 1st. Lt. Charles M. Kincaid. He was a Liaison Officer with the 30th. Division Artillery. He was honored with an Air Medal in the battle of Mortain and a Bronze Medal in the battle of St. Lo. In the battle of Mortain he won his Air Medal by calling in artillery adjustments while flying in a Piper L-4 over 4 panzer divisions on August 9, 1944.

He rarely wrote home. He did write home to his minister about one event that evidently really caused him to stop and think. Attached is a copy of that letter that his sister transcribed – making copies for others to read. The letter describes the Farsleben train and his experience there.

I need to thank you for your website and work. You and your students work enabled me to connect the letter with the actual historical event. It further enabled me to show my children the pictures and to make their grandfather’s experience real, not just an old letter – that this event so affected him that he needed to tell his minister before he told his mother.

Thank you,
Mark A.

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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on the Syrian refugee crisis and American policy.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged American policy, Syrian refugee crisis, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on February 2, 2017|

Yesterday, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum felt compelled to issue the following statement:

Today, the Museum issued the following statement:

The Museum is acutely aware of the consequences to the millions of Jews who were unable to flee Nazism, as noted in our November 2015 statement on the Syrian refugee crisis. The Museum continues to have grave concern about the global refugee crisis and our response to it. During the 1930s and 1940s, the United States, along with the rest of the world, generally refused to admit Jewish refugees from Nazism due to antisemitic and xenophobic attitudes, harsh economic conditions, and national security fears.

In our view, there are many legitimate refugees fleeing the Assad regime’s sustained campaign of crimes against humanity and the genocidal acts perpetrated by ISIS against the Yazidis, Christians, and other religious minorities. American policy should fully address national security concerns while protecting legitimate refugees whatever their national or religious identity.

A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum inspires citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Its far-reaching educational programs and global impact are made possible by generous donors. For more information, visit ushmm.org.

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Statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged International Holocaust Remembrance Day, rise of Hitler, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on January 30, 2017|

January 30th, 1933. Adolf Hitler comes to power in Germany. Friday, January 27th, was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The Museum is compelled to clarify exactly what the Holocaust is all about.

On the day of his appointment as German chancellor, Adolf Hitler greets a crowd of enthusiastic Germans from a window in the Chancellery building. Berlin, Germany, January 30, 1933. —Bayerische Staatsbibliothek via USHMM

JANUARY 30, 2017

UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM STATEMENT ON INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

WASHINGTON, DC – The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. Nazi ideology cast the world as a racial struggle, and the singular focus on the total destruction of every Jewish person was at its racist core. Millions of other innocent civilians were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis, but the elimination of Jews was central to Nazi policy. As Elie Wiesel said, “Not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims.”

The Holocaust teaches us profound truths about human societies and our capacity for evil. An accurate understanding of this history is critical if we are to learn its lessons and honor its victims.

A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum inspires citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Its far-reaching education programs and global impact are made possible by generous donors. Learn more at ushmm.org.

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“The world needs saving. So, get to it!”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Helen Sperling, history education, Holocaust, Holocaust survivor-liberator reunion, Holocaust Survivors, narrative history, Power of Teaching, teaching history matters, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, World War II, World War II Living History Project on December 10, 2015|

Helen Sperling passed away last week. She was an incredible woman, a Holocaust survivor whose mantra was “Thou shalt not be a bystander.”

I spoke at the annual Yom Hashoah lecture that she sponsored for her community in Utica a few years back. She lived about 100 miles away, so her friend Marsha drove her to Saratoga Springs, the halfway point for us, so that she could meet me and vet me for herself before committing to my lecture. I passed the test. later, my friends at the USHMM found some of her liberation documents for me, which I sent to her. I even found one of the US soldiers who liberated her, in the town near me.

The article and post below is from a couple years ago. I love the photo. Godspeed, Helen. Rest assured that all those whom you touched, will keep the memory alive.

******

Helen is a friend of mine. She was liberated in April 1945 by a division of American soldiers that included our high school secretary’s uncle.

At her invitation I traveled to central NY to speak 2 years ago.

She is still going strong. I love her! Her central message to students-“The world needs saving. So, get to it!”

BY RACHEL MURPHY
Rome Observer Staff Writer

ROME, NY. — Holocaust survivor Helen Sperling, 93, recounted the darkest moment of her life before a crowd of more than 300 eighth-graders at Lyndon H. Strough Middle School on Wednesday.

Sperling spoke for two hours about her time in the concentration camps.

Sperling was born to a middle class family where she lived in Poland.

During a school vacation when she was 22 years old, the Germans invaded her home and took her family into a ghetto.

“For the first time in my life, I was completely and utterly helpless,” she said.

During her time in the ghetto, Sperling remembered being able to contact a close friend to wish her a happy birthday. But when Sperling called her friend, who was a Gentile, the friend responded with a racial slur.

“You did not realize who was your friend and who was your enemy,” she said.

She explained that like many other Jewish families, hers was eventually taken from the ghetto and separated into prison camps. She was first placed into Ravensbrück, where she was forced to perform demeaning tasks the Nazi’s used as a way to break her spirit.

But despite the torture, hunger and fear, Sperling managed to survive, along with her younger brother.

“Ninety-nine percent of our survival was sheer luck,” she said. “A little tiny bit of it was hanging on to dignity. Once you lost that, you didn’t have a chance.”

Sperling’s parents did not survive.

Her family was among the 6 million other Jews that were sent to death camps and were killed by the Nazis.

Sperling placed two family photographs on a table nearby as she spoke to the students.

“These are mine, and I miss them terribly,” she said of her family members.

However, she continues to share her story to hopefully inspire and educate others.

“I want them to know that they can do something. I don’t want them to be bystanders,” she said.

Sperling added that even though it is difficult to retell it’s worth it.

“As long as I can do and as many schools as I can cover I want to,” she said.

Assistant Principal Michael Stalteri explained that he hopes the students learn from Sperling’s life and positive outlook.

“Her story resonates with what goes on in their lives when they’re being persecuted, picked on, harassed, bullied or made to feel different,” he said. “Hearing Mrs. Sperling’s story of triumph and her message is exhilarating.”

After Sperling finished her story each student hugged her, and she gave them an anti-bullying bracelet.

http://romeobserver.com/articles/2013/03/15/news/doc5140d89a9dd53321768186.txt?viewmode=fullstory

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Teaching the Holocaust.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Holocaust, Kylie James, Sara Kollbaum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on May 15, 2015|

There are ‘wrong’ ways to teach about the Holocaust.

Here are the general guidelines in a project I created for the Museum Teacher program at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum with fellow Museum Teacher Fellow Sara Kollbaum, set to original music sung and performed by student Kylie James. For students, her song is also a good model of what an expressive and appropriate learning project can be about.

From the original You Tube link: ‘Educational project completed for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC to help educators teach the Holocaust. It features the work of Kylie James, student, her song set to photographs collected by USHMM Fellow Matthew Rozell and USHMM Fellow Sara Kollbaum.It is four and a half minutes long. The song begins 30 seconds in.’

This is for Remembrance

Verse 1: Six million died

Innocents who lost their lives

Children and their mothers all lined up by their numbers

Told that there were showers

They were gassed within the hour

Chorus: this is for remembrance

For all of those who lost their lives

And this is for remembrance

Of all of those left behind

So don’t forget the people who died

‘Cause they won’t forget their genocide

Verse 2: everything was taken

Husbands from their wives

No one can forget the

Day the Nazis arrived

Houses were torn apart all around

Synagogues were burning to the ground

this is for remembrance

For all of those who lost their lives

And this is for remembrance

Of all of those left behind

So don’t forget the people who died

‘Cause they won’t forget their genocide

Verse 3: how could they do this?

Exterminate more than half a race

Why would they do this

With no remorse like child’s play

How could they do this?

The world just looked and turned away…

this is for remembrance

FOR all of those who lost their lives

And this is for remembrance

Of all of those left behind

So don’t forget the people who died

‘Cause they won’t forget their genocide

this is for remembrance

For all of those who lost their lives

And this is for remembrance

Of all of those left behind

So teach your children, not to hate

Learn from our past, before its too late

This is for remembrance

DOWNLOAD THE GUIDELINES HERE:

http://www.ushmm.org/educators/teaching-about-the-holocaust/general-teaching-guidelines

IMPORTANT EXCERPT:

‘One of the primary concerns of educators teaching the history of the Holocaust is how to present horrific, historical images in a sensitive and appropriate manner. Graphic material should be used judiciously and only to the extent necessary to achieve the lesson objective. Try to select images and texts that do not exploit the students’ emotional vulnerability or that might be construed as disrespectful to the victims themselves. Do not skip any of the suggested topics because the visual images are too graphic; instead, use other approaches to address the material.

In studying complex human behavior, many teachers rely upon simulation exercises meant to help students “experience” unfamiliar situations. Even when great care is taken to prepare a class for such an activity, simulating experiences from the Holocaust remains pedagogically unsound. The activity may engage students, but they often forget the purpose of the lesson and, even worse, they are left with the impression that they now know what it was like to suffer or even to participate during the Holocaust. It is best to draw upon numerous primary sources, provide survivor testimony, and refrain from simulation games that lead to a trivialization of the subject matter.

Furthermore, word scrambles, crossword puzzles, counting objects, model building, and other gimmicky exercises tend not to encourage critical analysis but lead instead to low-level types of thinking and, in the case of Holocaust curricula, trivialization of the history. If the effects of a particular activity, even when popular with you and your students, run counter to the rationale for studying the history, then that activity should not be used.’

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Seventy Years: The Death March and the Defining Moment.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Bergen Belsen, bergen belsen concentration camp, death march, Holocaust Education, Joseph H. Danziger, Liberators, Matthew Rozell, teaching history matters, Teaching the Holocaust, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, World War II, World War II Living History Project on March 22, 2015|

{To commemorate the spring of 1945 and liberation seventy years on, I am posting the unfolding nature of the discovery of the Holocaust as Allied troops closed in from the East and the West.}

March 19, 1945:

Adolf Hitler issues the Nero-Befehl (Nero Order), a scorched-earth directive intended to leave only a ruined Germany for advancing troops.
March 19, 1945:

Two hundred survivors out of 1000 Jewish women who began a forced march from the Neusalz, Poland, slave-labor camp on January 26 are evacuated by train to the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen, Germany; see this post.

Source: Weber, Louis. The Holocaust Chronicle. Publications International Ltd., 2007. http://www.holocaustchronicle.org

I received this email from the son of survivors:

Dear Mr. Rozell,

My mother was one of the 200 or so that survived that “death march”! The survivors were transported to the camp at Bergen-Belsen, where my mother was ultimately liberated on April 15, 1945.

Many years ago, she did relate to me a wartime story of hers which I wrote up in 2006, and had published.

Prisoners on a death march from Dachau move towards the south along the Noerdliche Muenchner street in Gruenwald. German civilians secretly photographed several death marches from the Dachau concentration camp as the prisoners moved slowly through the Bavarian towns of Gruenwald, Wolfratshausen, and Herbertshausen. Few civilians gave aid to the prisoners on the death marches. Germany, April 29, 1945. — KZ Gedenkstaette Dachau. USHMM

The Defining Moment

By Joseph H. Danziger

It happened more than sixty years ago- and not to me- but I cannot dislodge it from my mind’s eye. My consciousness will not surrender the thought of what it must have been like for my mother, especially on one ominous day. I am a child of Holocaust survivors.

My parents, and thousands like the, each have personal stories of their incarceration in the various concentration camps that dotted Germany, Poland and neighboring countries during World War II.

My parents rarely shared with me their accounts of that desperate period of their lives. When prodded, they might offer an occasional vignette. Seeing the pain on their faces in talking of these experiences, however, I didn’t push for details. Those are memories they certainly preferred to have long forgotten.

Of the stories that were begrudgingly told to me, one shared by my mother will haunt me forever. The soul-searching decision with which she was confronted on that fateful day so long ago is unfathomable to me. As a result of the decision she made that say, I am here to tell the tale.

My mother spent the flower of her youth- ages 17 through 20- within the confines of a concentration camp in Neusalz, Poland. It was a women’s “slave-labor” camp where yarn was processed for the war effort. Although it was not one of the infamous “death” camps such as Auschwitz, Treblinka or Sobibor, the distinction between these titles is hardly significant. In a death camp the aim was to kill as many and as quickly humanly possible. In a slave-labor camp the goal was, in effect, to work the laborers to death, with an ever-replenishing supply of labor. The death tolls in each were mind-boggling. The human skeletons who managed to survive all looked the same and had similar stories of deprivation, torture, depravity and the wanton taking of life.

In the midst of this living hell, an opportunity presented itself to my mother. She saw a possible means of escape. Despite knowing that if she got caught she would face certain death, she took the chance. She escaped, although she never explained exactly how.

Clad only in rags, she trudged through unfamiliar territory until she came to a house. She knocked on the door. She related her circumstance to the master of the house and pleaded for food and a place to hide. Although sympathetic to her plight, he told her he could not jeopardize his family. If found to have secreted a Jew, especially one who escaped from a nearby camp, he and his whole family would most likely be killed as a lesson to the community.

Yet, seeing my mother’s emaciated condition and dire need- and against his better judgment- he took pity on her. He invited her into his home, let her eat, bathe and sleep the night. Before the break of dawn, however, he said she must be gone. She thanked him and availed herself on his family’s kindness. For one night during a span of three years she had a full stomach, clean clothes and a restful night’s sleep.

She left before dawn, as promised. But where would she go? Only then did the truly desperate nature of her circumstance become apparent. For one such as she there was nowhere to go.

My mother was confronted with an unimaginable predicament, a sort of Gordian knot. Should she hazard freedom in an unfamiliar countryside filled with antisemitism where peril and betrayal would be her constant companions? Or should she attempt the inconceivable- a stealth re-entry into the camp from which she had just risked her life to escape- hoping the guards had not noticed her absence? As least there she reasoned, she had the known quantity of a controlled environment offering minimal subsistence, albeit in a horrific setting and under subhuman conditions. She chose the latter. In her mind, that choice offered the best chance for survival. As remarkable as was her original escape, doubly remarkable was her ability to re-enter the camp, unnoticed, and return to her quarters before the morning roll call.

With the memory of nearly one full day of freedom, my mother persevered. Then, in January 1945, together with 1,000 other interned women, she was set on a one-and-a-half-month forced to march to the concentration camp at Flossenburg, Germany, some 200 miles to the southwest. This was one of many so-called “death marches” that occurred toward the end of the war, in a calculated maneuver by the Nazis to deceive the Allies about the vast network of fully functioning concentration camps in operation during the war years.

Along the way to Flossenburg, 800 women were beaten, shot or left to die when they collapsed in the harsh winter. Upon their arrival, the remaining 200 women were transported to the concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen. On April 15, 1945, the British and the Canadians liberated the scant number of those remaining. One of those was my mother. One year later, after surviving family members were reunited, she married my father.

I cannot imagine any other Holocaust survivor choosing a purposeful re-entry into a concentration camp after an earlier successful escape. The very idea is mind-numbing. But she chose wisely, for which her five children and six grandchildren are her testament. I will forever marvel at the immense resolve of this remarkable woman and her relentless insistence on survival.

(Article first appeared in THE PHILADELPHIA LAWYER , SUMMER 2006. Retyped by student Jana Putzig. Used with permission.)

*************************************************************

Matthew Rozell is a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Teacher Fellow and teaches history at his alma mater in upstate New York. This year, he is authoring a series of posts under the heading of ‘Seventy Years’, marking the 70th anniversary of the close of World War II and of the ‘liberation phase’ of the Holocaust. His work has reunited 275 Holocaust survivors with the American soldiers who freed them.

His first book, a narrative of World War II in the Pacific as told through the previously unpublished recollections of two dozen veterans, is due out this spring. His second book, in progress, is on the power of teaching, remembering the Holocaust, and this “Train Near Magdeburg’. He can be reached at marozell at gmail dot com.

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Seventy Years: The American Angels of Hillersleben.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 1945, 70 years, 95th Medical Battalion, 95th Medical Gas Treatment Battalion, A person lives forever, American Hospital at Hillersleben, American soldiers, Ariela Rojek, belsen concentration camp, Bergen Belsen, bergen belsen concentration camp, concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, D-Day, Donald W. Rust, Ervin Abadi, Farsleben, Hillersleben, Hillersleben DP Camp, Holocaust, Holocaust Education, Holocaust survivor art, Holocaust Survivors, Hungary and the Holocaust, If his name is mentioned a person lives forever, Luca Furnari, Magdeburg train, Matthew Rozell, Monroe Williams, MTF Program, Seventy Years, teaching history matters, Teaching the Holocaust, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, USHMM, Walter Gantz, World War II on February 20, 2015|

The cosmos trips once more. This month, shortly after my previous post about the discovery of previously unknown artwork by Hungarian Holocaust survivor Ervin Abadi, I was contacted by the family of another American soldier who was at Hillersleben camp as the survivors of the train were being nursed back to health by the medics of the 95th Medical Gas Battalion. They sent me most of the drawings below [Monroe Williams credit, courtesy the Williams family], published here for the first time.

Abadi’s recently discovered artwork matches that of his previously known work, some of which is housed in the archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Ervin Abadi, Typhus. USHMM Collection. Probably completed at Hillersleben DP Camp, May, 1945.

(If you suspect that you have any of Abadi’s art in your family, or if anyone remembers his time at Hillersleben or Bergen Belsen, please drop me a line at the bottom.)

He was driven to express his gratitude for the American soldiers who freed him from the train, brought him to the hospital at Hillersleben, nursed him back to health and protected him in his stay at the displaced persons camp. These important drawings are proof of that, and confirm his dedication to feverishly recording everything that he could about those days. He drew his surroundings, his memories of the horrors of Bergen Belsen, and the beautiful young American soldiers around him, and even their precious photos of loved ones in their wallets!

In his words:

“Let these drawings serve as proof of my everlasting gratitude towards those to whom I owe my life. … To the soldiers of the United States Army, particularly to our immediate liberators, those soldiers of the 9th regiment who first entered the village of Zilitz and gave us bread, milk, chocolate, and cigarettes….”

American soldier at Hillersleben, ‘Man’. Ervin Abadi. Completed at Hillersleben DP camp, May, 1945. Soldier Monroe Williams collection.

American soldier-medic at Hillersleben. Ervin Abadi. Completed at Hillersleben DP camp, May, 1945. Soldier Monroe Williams collection.

A kapo inflicts a beating at Bergen-Belsen. Ervin Abadi. Completed at Hillersleben DP camp, May, 1945. Soldier Monroe Williams collection.

The American hospital at Hillersleben. Ervin Abadi. Completed at Hillersleben DP camp, May, 1945. Soldier Monroe Williams collection.

Soldier Monroe Williams’ parents. Probably sketched from wallet photo. Ervin Abadi. Completed at Hillersleben DP camp, May, 1945. Soldier Monroe Williams collection.

Ervin Abadi. Completed at Hillersleben DP camp, May, 1945. Soldier Monroe Williams collection.

The ‘casino’ at Hillersleben. Ervin Abadi. Completed at Hillersleben DP camp, May, 1945. Soldier Monroe Williams collection. Note Red Cross tents in foreground. May have served as temporary morgue station.

Former hospital at Hillersleben today. (Christian Wolpers photo.)

‘Hillersleben-some disorderly DPs getting a shower bath (DDT?)’ Soldier Luca Furnari photograph.

*****

Former American medic Walter Gantz called me out of the blue 3 years ago. Like all of the soldiers now reappearing in Abadi’s drawings, he was there. A couple newspaper articles appeared about Walter’s experience at Hillersleben shortly thereafter. I put survivors in touch with him:

By the fall of 1944, the 95th [Medical Gas]Battalion was stationed at the Belgian-German border.

That winter, Mr. Gantz helped treat the wounded at the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes region, and by the spring of ’45 his unit had made its way into Germany.

In mid-April, they were in the town of Hillersleben setting up a displaced persons hospital when the Allies came across a train that had come from the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, where over 35,000 people, the vast majority of them Eastern European Jews, had died of typhus during the first few months of that year.

All told, there were roughly 2,400 emotionally damaged, disease-ridden and terribly malnourished people aboard the train. “Walking skeletons” was an apt description, according to Mr. Gantz.

“We weren’t knowledgeable about these (concentration camps) at the time,” said Mr. Gantz, who visited Bergen-Belsen days after it was liberated. There, he saw countless dead bodies “strewn everywhere.”

“It was hard to explain,” he said. “I cried. And then I prayed for these people. Not only were you angry about what happened, but you felt so helpless.”

Mr. Gantz’s unit spent about six weeks treating the survivors. A good 70 or 80 of them died, mostly of typhus. Among the biggest challenges was acquiring enough food supplies to feed them all. Many could only take their nourishment intravenously.

“A lot of them, if you were to give them food, they would gorge themselves and kill themselves. You had to be very careful as to what they ate,” he said. “Boy, oh boy, they would scream. Those screams would go right through your body.”

“Hillersleben was a living nightmare,” he added. “You don’t shake these horrible scenes from one’s mind.” {see more https://teachinghistorymatters.com/2011/11/04/my-parents-couldnt-understand-why-i-couldnt-sleep-at-times/}

***

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.

“I still get flashbacks to that,” he said.

Many died, mostly of typhus. Among the biggest challenges was acquiring enough food to feed them all, since a good portion of them could only take their nourishment intravenously. One of the survivors Mr. Gantz has spoken with, Lexie Keston, now a resident of Australia, told him she weighed just 30 pounds at the time of the rescue. She was 8 years old.

As a result of Mr. Rozell’s [work], a handful of Bergen-Belsen survivors have been in touch with Mr. Gantz, including Ariela Rojek, a Toronto resident who was 11-1/2 years old at the time of the rescue.

Mrs. Rojek, a Pole who lost all but an aunt during the Holocaust, was among those suffering from typhus. She spent three weeks in semi-consciousness, and remembers having to be tied to the bed by medics trying to restrain her. Mr. Gantz could have been one of them, she said.

“Those soldiers, they gave me my life. Because I was very sick,” she said.

“It was tough. Some of our guys couldn’t take it,” Mr. Gantz said. “I have to admit, I did a lot of crying. I tried not to do it around the patients.”

Now, though, he has the peace of mind of knowing firsthand that, despite all the horrors, life did go on for the survivors of Bergen-Belsen, just as it did for him and his fellow veterans. Asked once by a friend what he took from his wartime experience, Mr. Gantz thought for a moment, then replied, “It made me stronger spiritually.”

“I’ve been blessed,” he said. “I thank the good Lord every day.”

“He’s one of the angels,” Mrs. Rojek said of Mr. Gantz. “I’m really grateful. Whenever I get a name and phone number, I always call them. They gave me a second life.”

Mr. Gantz, 87, said the whole experience has made him feel “10 feet tall.”

“I have to use the word mind-boggling. I guess you’d have to put it in the category of a dream,” he said. “I have to be honest with you, it’s embarrassing. All they keep saying is, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’”

{see more https://teachinghistorymatters.com/2012/03/04/it-was-tough-some-of-our-guys-couldnt-take-it/}

********

FINAL NOTE. We are also looking for this little girl, a survivor at Hillersleben. Her name was Irene. You can read the backstory here. Please contact me below.

‘Hillersleben-Irene is in the flowered dress’ Soldier Luca Furnari photograph.

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Seventy Years: ‘If his name is mentioned, a person lives forever.’

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 1945, 70 years, 95th Medical Battalion, 95th Medical Gas Treatment Battalion, A person lives forever, American Hospital at Hillersleben, American soldiers, belsen concentration camp, Bergen Belsen, bergen belsen concentration camp, D-Day, Donald W. Rust, Ervin Abadi, Farsleben, Hillersleben, Holocaust, Holocaust Education, Holocaust survivor art, Holocaust Survivors, Hungary and the Holocaust, If his name is mentioned a person lives forever, Magdeburg train, Matthew Rozell, MTF Program, Seventy Years, teaching history matters, Teaching the Holocaust, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, USHMM, World War II on February 9, 2015| 1 Comment »

Victory, 1945. By Ervin Abadi. Hilersleben, Germany, May 1945.

Victory, 1945. By Ervin Abadi. Hillersleben, Germany, May 1945. Courtesy Chriss Brown, granddaughter of American soldier Don Rust.

The wires of the cosmos trip once more.

After almost exactly 70 years, a person came to this site on Jan. 30th with an inquiry:

I recently came across this site looking for a gentleman my grandfather became close to. My grandfather, Donald W. Rust of the 95th Medical Gas Treatment Battalion, helped him … and often spent time with him. The gentleman drew several pictures for my grandfather and I still have them today.

Donald W Rust of Kansas City KS. Hillersleben DP Camp, May 1945. Source: Chriss Brown, granddaughter of Don Rust.

Donald W Rust of Kansas City KS. Hillersleben DP Camp, May 1945. By Ervin Abadi. Source: Chriss Brown, granddaughter of Don Rust.

We looked while my grandfather was still alive but were unable to find any lists of the survivors until now. We cannot read his name clearly but we think the drawer’s name is ‘Albadi’ or something close to it. I would love to share the pictures he drew and also would like to hear if anyone can help me contact the survivor’s family. My grandmother turns 90 in March and it would mean the world to her to know what become of him.

My grandfather told us the gentleman was from Poland, but we don’t know what city. Unfortunately, my grandfather could not remember his name. If anyone can help, it would be much appreciated. ~Chriss B.

***

I immediately knew who she was talking about (though he hailed from Hungary, not Poland) and got in touch with her. She sent me samples, and sure enough it was Ervin Abadi, whose work I was very familiar with. He had even sketched a drawing of the liberation with the tanks rolling in, but unfortunately he passed away 22 years before I sat down to do my interview with one of the tank commanders in the drawing.

Liberation, April 13th, 1945. Drawing by survivor Ervin Abadi. USHMM.

The Liberation of the Train, by Ervin Abadi. USHMM.

The Liberation of the Train, Farsleben, Germany, April, 1945. Ervin Abadi. USHMM.

Dozens of Abadi’s pieces are at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and his bio there reads as follows:

In his early twenties when the war broke out, Ervin Abadi lived in Budapest, Hungary and wanted to be a painter. But, as with all Jewish males his age, he was taken to Russia by the Hungarian Army as a forced laborer. Abadi managed to escape but was captured after hiding out in the Karpet Mountains. After being brutally mistreated he managed to escape again, but was recaptured and taken to Bergen Belsen. When the camp was liberated by the US Army [incorrect: his train transport from Belsen to Theresienstadt] on April 13, 1945, Abadi was taken to a hospital in Hillersleben, where he recovered. While in the hospital (and possibly earlier in the camp) he made 25-30 watercolors, dealing with his arrival at Bergen Belsen, life in the camp and its liberation by the US Army. Abadi returned to Budapest where he told about his life as a forced laborer and and an inmate of Bergen Belsen in a collection of 30 ink drawings. The work was published in 500 copies with Hungarian and English captions in 1946. The foreword of the book says, in part, “Let these drawings serve as proof of my everlasting gratitude towards those to whom I owe my life. … To the soldiers of the United States Army, particularly to our immediate liberators, those soldiers of the 9th regiment who first entered the village of Zilitz and gave us bread, milk, chocolate, and cigarettes….” Abadi, however, became disallusioned by Communist Hungary and managed to leave for Israel in 1947 or 1948 where he lived in Israel for the rest of his life. There he wrote 15 books in both Hebrew and Hungarian. He died in 1979. [my emphasis]

***

Ervin Abadi’s name is also the first on the existing manifest list. Some years ago, with the help of Varda W. in Israel, his daughter got in contact with me, and sent me his DP [displaced persons] document from Hillersleben:

Hillerleben Displaced Persons certificate-Ervin Abadi.

At that time, 5 years ago, his daughter wrote:

As you know, my father is a survivor from Bergen Belsen on the Magdeburg train. He got sick with typhus and was taken to the American Hospital at Hillersleben.

All my life my father told me to remember that he was saved by the Americans, and for that he will be grateful until his last day- and so must I, because if he was not to be saved- I wouldn’t be born.

My father passed away in 1979, and since then I tried to keep my promise to my father. I went to Normandy in France and walked the beaches that are soaked with the blood of the American soldiers and wanted to honor their memory, for because of them, I am living today.

A few years later I visited the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC. I met there an old gentleman and I found out that he was one of the American soldiers who fought on the beach on D-Day! I told him the story about my father and we both fell into each others arms crying. I felt like I fulfilled my promise to my father. ~Julia A. H.

So I dug out the letter, got in contact with Julia again, and put her in touch with Chriss, the granddaughter of the soldier who in befriending Abadi, helped him in his recuperation.

Raymond D. Rape of Zelienople, PA ; Grafton D Junkin of Kennedy, Alabama ; Donald W Rust of Kansas City KS. Hillersleben DP Camp, May 1945. Source: Chriss Brown, granddaughter of Don Rust.

From Julia, the artist’s daughter, last week:

I was very touched… 70 years after it happened, my father’s drawings came back to us.

We use to say that if his name is mentioned, a person lives forever.

Thank you again for remembering my father’s work of art.

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“Belsen! I think they had been in Belsen.”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 30th Infantry Division, 743rd Tank Battalion, Anne Frank, Belsen, Bergen Belsen, Bergen Belsen Memorial, Carrol Walsh, concentration camp, history education, Holocaust, Holocaust Education, Holocaust survivor-liberator reunion, Matthew Rozell, Power of Teaching, Train Near Magdeburg, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, World War II, World War II Living History Project on July 5, 2014| 1 Comment »

A year ago I took one of the most transformative journeys of my life, with 24 fellow educators, to study the Holocaust and the Jewish resistance to it, in Washington, DC, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland. I kept an extensive diary and took tons of photographs. For the next several days, I have decided to go back and retrace my steps and try to process what unfolded for me. Not weighty tomes, but maybe a picture and a note from the diary.

Bergen Belsen on July 5, 2013.

“Belsen! I think they had been in Belsen.”

On July 5, 2013, we are on our way from the hotel in nearly Celle to this destination. Our first concentration camp of the tour.

Trying to remember the name of the concentration camp, the elderly gentleman exclaimed these words as he animated his story from the rocking chair across from me. I was in his daughter’s house on a brilliant July day, twelve summers before. It seems like a lifetime ago. But if I had not taken the time to go there and sit down with him, you would not be reading any of this.

People, mostly news media, get the story wrong all the time. I had not invited the veteran to class because I had had his grandson. It was a series of coincidences that changed so many lives, but then again, I am sure there are no coincidences.

Is it a coincidence that I am making my first trip to Belsen on the day that he is being laid to rest in his hometown back in New York state? Or that by 8pm I will be traveling on the same spur of tracks toward Magdeburg, on which the Sherman light tank he was commanding sixty-eight springs ago came to the train with 2500 Jewish victims of the Holocaust onboard?

I was picking my young children up from daycare. I knew Tim, the other father there at the same time, picking up his young son. I had his older son in class at the time. Tim knew I liked to talk to World War II veterans, and he invited me to come over and speak to his father in law, a retired NYS Supreme Court justice, who was coming up to stay for the summer. So I took him up on it. What a great man, funny too. We conversed on tape for nearly two hours, and I was about to turn the camera off, and his daughter, Tim’s wife Elizabeth, spoke up:

Daughter: Did you mention the train at all? That was kind of interesting.
CW: No, I didn’t tell him about the train.
MR: What was that?
CW: Well, late in the war, again a nice, beautiful April day… we were shooting like crazy across the top of Germany and Major Benjamin of the 743rd was kind of out ahead scouting a little bit… he came back to the battalion and he pulled my tank and George Gross’s tank [fellow tank commander] out. He told us to go with him. So we did.
We came to a place where there was a long train of boxcars. … I can remember pulling up alongside the train of boxcars, Gross and I, and Major Benjamin. As it turned out, it was a train full of concentration camp victims, prisoners, who were being transported from one of their camps…Belsen! I think they had been in Belsen, on their way to another camp…
So there they were. All of these people, men, women, children, jam-packed in those boxcars, I couldn’t believe my eyes. And there they were! So, now they knew they were free, they were liberated. That was a nice, nice thing. I was there for a while that afternoon. You know, you got to feed these people. Give them water. They are in bad shape. Major Benjamin took some pictures, and George Gross took some pictures too…

Bernd Horstmann, Custodian of the Book of Names, Matthew Rozell, History Teacher, July 5, 2013. Bergen Belsen, Evacuation transports exhibit.

Twelve years later and here I am. I know some of the historians who work here-they have been to America to meet me- and I am going to see an exhibit that in fact incorporates some of the fruits of my labors. To date, we have reunited over 240 persons who were on that transport with the soldiers who liberated them. And I found the photographs that tell the story so well, photos that through the generosity of the soldiers who shared them with me, are now also in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, our national institution.

In brief context: 120,000 prisoners passed through Bergen Belsen, and not all of them Jewish. 52,000 died here, perhaps 30,000 of them were Jewish. Belsen actually began as a POW camp- 20,000 Russians died here in the winter of 1941-42. In 1943, Himmler (the head of the SS) ordered that an exchange camp be set up for Jews who might possess foreign certificates or visas to emigrate, perhaps to use to bargain for German families interned abroad. 14,000 people went through the exchange camp. In November, 1944, thousands of women, and some children, arrived from Auschwitz, to be “housed” near the exchange camp, including Anne Frank and her sister Margot. What they received, in their miserable condition, were 18 oversized old tents which promptly blew down during a winter storm shortly after their arrival. With the arrival also of brutal SS administrators and guards, conditions deteriorated rapidly as the winter of 1944-45 turned into spring.

The camp system began collapsing with the advance of the Red Army in the east and the British and Americans in the West. By the time the British arrived on April 15th at the camp gates, over 50,000 prisoners were suffering from extreme malnutrition, typhus, typhoid fever, and dysentery. Nearly ten thousand corpses lay about as the crematorium had long since broken down. Anne and Margot were dead, as the first Yanks crossed the Rhine River at the end of March. Hundreds died on the day of liberation. A true scene of horror.

Shortly before the liberation, between April 6 and 9, 1945, 6700 men, women, and children from the exchange camp passed through the camp gates and marched several kilometers to the railhead that many had arrived at months or years earlier. Three train transports of cattle cars and shabby passenger cars were prepared and loaded. Some people were executed for attempting to steal sugar beets at the railhead .
The transports would be headed for the Theresienstadt concentration camp, which at the time was far enough from advancing Allied lines and indeed would prove to be the last camp liberated on the last day of the war (I will trace that route later in our journey). Only one train made it there. The other two were liberated, one by the Americans at Farsleben near Magdeburg, and the other by the Russians near Tröbitz.
The first train left Bergen-Belsen on 6 April 1945 and travelled for six days before coming to a stop near the village of Farsleben. It was this transport that the soldiers I interviewed came upon on Friday, April 13, 1945.

I promised no weighty tomes, but maybe it is too late. After an introduction to the history of the site, we watch the silent movies shot by the British beginning the second day after the liberation. Perhaps you’ve seen the photos or the films. If you see a photo of a soldier wearing a mask, maneuvering a bulldozer to push corpses into an open pit, that was Bergen Belsen. Just over a month later, the British commander ordered the lice infested, typhus ridden barracks put to the torch. So today, to some visitors, there is nothing here, just inviting walkways with interpretive signage and some markers. Woods, and open fields.

Matthew Rozell and the ruins at Belsen, 7-5-2013. Jerrilyn Miller photo.

But on closer inspection, we see the outlines of the past in the ruins. We walk to barracks ten of the exchange camp. You can see the outline at the woodline. Some of the foundation stones are marked with the names of those who passed through them. We retrace the steps from the barracks to the latrine, now many meters away off a footpath in the enveloping woods. Nature reclaims. Out of the corner of my eye, down the long narrow strip mowed to infinity where a fenceline once ran, I see a large deer guide out of the woods, pause and look my way, and vanish just as soon as it appeared. Is it obscene to find in this place now a feeling of inner peace, to find beauty in the stillness of a grey afternoon? Maybe so.

Back out to the camp. The solemn monuments marking the mass graves. 1000 Tote. One thousand dead. 2500 Tote. Two thousand five hundred dead. And on and on, elevated mass graves. On to the commemoration room.

Candles are lit, stones are placed, the prayers are recited in Hebrew and English, led by Pauline, the only other New Yorker on the trip with me. We are all moved.

Now I think of Carrol Walsh, the tank commander who led me to this story, the liberator who did not want to be called a hero, or even a liberator. His own memorial service is today, half a world away, but I am here in this place to remember him as well. It is altogether fitting and proper. And I am sure that cosmically, it is also something destined to be.

This evening we depart from Hannover to Berlin. It is pretty crazy and unsettling at the Friday evening platform. 27 people have to run for the train, as the track has changed, with hundreds of others. Our original seats are taken, so we have to find other due to a mixup. But we do not lose anyone, and as I settle in next to a kind stranger, made welcome, I notice our station stops along the way- Brunswick. Magdeburg.

This was not planned, either. We are roughly following the route of the train, and the 30th Infantry Division in 1945. What take us 35 minutes to cover, takes 6 nights and 7 days in April 1945.

We tripped the wires of the cosmos. Today was the culmination of something incredible I am still trying to figure it all out- but this trip is helping me to place in proper context the elements of the greatest crime in the history of the world. As we leave this place of obscene beauty and peace, I think of the I think of the survivor’s words:

Remember Me.