{Some light editing has been done on this story to honor promises of anonymity, and to correct and clarify on my end.} Cheating the death train By JEFF WILKINSON The State Columbia, SC A few days before Christmas, 89-year-old World War II veteran Grier Taylor of Batesburg-Leesville got an unexpected telephone call. The woman on [...]
Archive for January, 2012
“I thought it might be a prank call. But then she started talking about my unit, and I knew she was real. It was just a shock.”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 30th Infantry Division, 743rd Tank Battalion, 95th Medical Battalion, belsen concentration camp, Bergen Belsen, bergen belsen concentration camp, Bergen Belsen Memorial, concentration camps, death train, education, Farsleben, Hillersleben, history, history education, Holocaust, Holocaust survivor-liberator reunion, Holocaust Survivors, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Liberators, narrative history, oral history, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Warsaw Ghetto, World War II, World War II Living History Project on January 29, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
“Just as we were at the point of despair, two American tanks came rolling down a hill and saved us.”
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, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Liberators, narrative history, oral history, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Warsaw Ghetto, World War II, World War II Living History Project on January 27, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Holocaust survivor recalls kindness of US troops Another survivor of the train near Magdeburg appears. International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 2012. I hope she finds her way to this site so she can meet her actual liberators! Thanks for Leslie Meisels for tipping us off to the article. Aliza’s memoir of life in the Warsaw Ghetto [...]
“It’s not for my sake, it’s for the sake of humanity, that they will remember…”
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 January 17, 2012 | 2 Comments »
My friend on the left described himself at one point in his life as the “Happiest Korean War Draftee”. Steve was a survivor from Hungary who beat the odds and lived through the horrors of the Holocaust after the Germans invaded that country in 1944 and did their best to kill him on several [...]
the consummate teacher.
Posted in Uncategorized on January 12, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
A good man left us this week. As I attempt to ponder the why, I can only fall back on the memories of one of the most honorable human beings that I had the privilege of knowing, albeit for only a small window of our respective lives. He and his twin Bruce were seniors; I [...]
Gina- "I trust her dreams were realized."
Posted in Uncategorized on January 5, 2012 | 4 Comments »
I never met Gina, but did finally meet her family on my visit to Israel last May. Gina was the only survivor who has been positively identified by the soldiers themselves- in this case, George C. Gross, who took a photo of her in front of his tank on April 13th, 1945, before moving out [...]
