We were the only two teachers in the room.

Last week I had the honor of being the recipient of the Glen at Hiland Meadows President’s Award. For the last several years, my twelfth graders have interviewed this retirement community’s residents. One student is paired off with an individual whose life story is then documented by the student. An interview is conducted, transcribed, and then researched; a paper is produced that adds an important aspect of the story of World War II and the Great Depression to the historical record, a story that otherwise would have been lost. One copy is then sent to the state archives. The kids and the elders bond and learn a great deal from each other. My kids have produced two hundred plus folders of material and I am now in the process of sorting it all out for professional articles and book chapters (click here for recent teacher-student collaborative PDF article).

I had no formal remarks prepared. On the way over in the car the principal asked me how many awards I had received in my career. Self consciously I said that I thought this was the ninth or tenth. I had told no one but my students that I was going to the ceremony, as I would be missing them on the last day. I did not tell colleagues and I did not even tell my own wife, herself a teacher. They work every bit as hard as I do. Instead they get collectively kicked everyday by the local paper.

To my surprise, my wife had been contacted and entered the room to join us at a table that included a CEO, bank president, and health care executive. In the room also were board chairpersons, town supervisors, a school superintendent, Congressional staffers, judges, more bank presidents, other CEOs- you get the picture, the movers and shakers. They were very nice down-to-earth folks who seemed to relish the opportunity to step back from the office and network a bit with their peers.  One of them leaned into the principal and me and asked what our take was on the daily articles, editorials, and columns slamming everything in the education profession.

I knew right then what my remarks would be about. I thanked the audience but the first person I recognized was my wife- not just for her support, but because we were the only two teachers in the room (teachers could learn so much from networking like this, but instead she had to play hookey)! Then I thanked my principal and explained to the crowd that some of the most profound lessons can be found by allowing the teacher the latitude in the classroom to lead students on a journey of discovery that may not necessarily take the path of pretesting and post testing kids to death. I gave the example of a girl who interviewed a resident there, a grizzled Marine who survived many battles against the Japanese, including Iwo Jima, and lost quite a few friends in the process.  She was amazed at his life story, but something he said had struck a discordant note with her- here was a man who questioned the decision to use atomic force against the Japanese (combat Marines in World War II generally will tell you that it was the best thing that happened, from the standpoint of their own existence). So I gave Jillian books, articles, papers, websites, and off she went to produce a 45 page paper about Ralph and the controversy surrounding the 50^th anniversary of the bombing and the national displaying of the Enola Gay. A connection was kindled, a publishable paper was written, a scholar was born, and today Jillian is in journalism school.

I don’t take credit for helping her find herself- she did all the work. But I know I won’t be getting the same results if I am turned into a “content support specialist”. While I recognize (and think I am pretty good at) my role as an assessment coach in certain subjects, I’m not a technician. I’m a history teacher. The new measures being instituted as a one-size-fits-all cure all by persons who are not even in the classroom  are myopic knee jerk political fixes that will have the effect of killing opportunities like these for our students. My senior elective which brought me to this awards ceremony and many others will likely be dead on arrival for not conforming to some narrow minded political quick fix. This class is not broken, but it will be killed off if it does not conform. And forget about bringing in World War II and Holocaust survivors to offer their life changing stories to the student body. Teachers are already scared to death to leave their classrooms. Shame on us all for allowing this.

Of course I did not bring that up, but I did tell them that contrary to what is read in the paper, punishing teachers is not going to solve the problems of society and will do more harm than good. (Do you know that we’ll even be graded for kids who are not in the classroom because an adult, somewhere, maybe a “parent”, lets them stay home all day?)

Personal responsibly and moral efficacy can’t be legislated- but they can be modeled and emulated. What better way to strengthen our national fiber, restore pride in ourselves and  draw courage from the lessons of the past than to charge a young person with preserving an older American’s story?

The talk was well received. Maybe I got to teach another lesson today. Fact is that some of the most powerful ones are unscripted.

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Help sought to solve old mystery….

This portrait was found on the battlefield of Port Republic, Virginia, between the bodies of a Confederate soldier and a Federal soldier. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

This post is about a story that is very much like what we are trying to do with some of the children’s photos that recently surfaced associated with child survivors of the Holocaust from the Train near Magdeburg.

By STEVE SZKOTAK
Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – The names of the two little girls are an enduring mystery, their images found among crumpled bodies on Civil War battlefields. Each is posed primly on chairs, ringlets cascading past the rouged cheeks of one, the other dressed in a frilly hoop dress.

But no one knows the identities of the girls in the photographs, or the stories they might tell.

The photograph of one girl was found between the bodies of two soldiers – one Union, one Confederate, at Port Royal, Va., 150 years ago this June. The other was retrieved from a slain Union soldier’s haversack in 1865 on a Virginia farm field days before a half-decade of blood-letting would end with a surrender signed not far away at Appomattox.

Though photography was in its infancy when the war broke out, its use was widespread. Many soldiers carried photographs of loved ones into battle and for the first time, photographic images of war were available – and the Museum of the Confederacy has its own vast collection of images today, many of them identified.

But now museum officials are releasing the unidentified images of the two girls, along with six other enigmatic photographs, on the admittedly remote chance someone might recognize a familial resemblance or make a connection to a battlefield where they were found.

There is no writing on the backs of these photographs. No notes tucked inside their wallet-sized frames. For a museum that prides itself on knowing the provenance of its holdings, the photographs offer few clues.

“We don’t know who they are and the people who picked them up did not know who they were,” said Ann Drury Wellford, curator of 6,000 Civil War images at the Richmond museum that has the largest collection of artifacts of the Confederate states, civilian and military. “They evoke an utter and complete sentimentality.”

Museum officials can only speculate on the children and adults, including soldiers, shown in the photographs. But whether they were sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, or siblings the prospect of identifying each grows dimmer with the passage of time.

Typically they were found by another soldier and handed down through generations. Ultimately an attic would be cleared or a trunk would be emptied and the photo would be given to the museum. Some have been in the museum’s possession for 60 years or more.

Even in its infancy, photography was booming during the Civil War. Photographers were assigned to Northern divisions and traveling photographers were the early version of photo booths as they visited encamped troops between battles and photographed them.

Photography was evolving from daguerreotype to ambrotypes and other mediums in which images were produced through a wet emulsion on glass and were more accessible to a wider audience.

“It had more versatility than it had ever had,” according to Jeffrey Ruggles, a historian of photography. “It was the early blossoming of photography. The war just happened to hit at a time when people were very interested in seeing these pictures.”

Bob Zeller, president of The Center for Civil War Photography, said soldiers carrying photographs of wives, children and other loved ones off to battle was common. Finding a photo on the battlefield without a clear connection to a dead soldier was uncommon and highly evocative.

“Much of it is the unknown factor that the image carries,” he said. “It’s something that everyone cherishes, a photograph of their loved ones, but there it is out on this battlefield with these seemingly nameless, faceless corpses.”

Zeller, the author of several books on Civil War photography, including “The Blue and Gray in Black and White: A History of Civil War Photography,” described such photos as the link for many Civil War combatants to “a reality that, for many of them, had just disappeared.”

Sometimes, the story behind an unidentified photo is eventually told. Zeller relates the story of a Union soldier who died at Gettysburg, clutching a photograph of his family. Widespread efforts in the North to identify the family ultimately proved successful in tracing his family to upstate New York.

As for the girl’s photos, there is no hint of who these subjects are and the connection to the combatants who once cherished them is lost.

Unlike modern soldiers, few Civil War troops had the modern-day version of dog tags and few carried identification. The Civil War also did not have the kinds of mortuary units that now strive to collect all the possessions of the war dead and return them to their families.

Each photograph is in a hinged case with a leather or composite exterior. The cases protected the fragile images, which include early photographic processes such as tintypes and daguerreotypes.

“We’re very fortunate that we know where they came from and how they were found, and many people who donated them were hopeful a family member would see them and identify them,” Wellford explained. But the museum official said it would be too costly and time-consuming, she said, for curators to do their own detective work.

Pvt. Thomas W. Timberlake of the 2nd Virginia Infantry found the portrait of the girl with the ringlets and hand-colored pink cheeks on the battlefield of Port Republic between the bodies of the two dead soldiers.

Fought in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s forces turned back Northern troops led by Brig. Gen. James Shields, who lost 67 men. The Union troops hailed from Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The other girl, who had short hair parted down the middle, was found by Pvt. Heartwell Kincaid Adams of the 3rd Virginia Cavalry in the haversack he found on a Union soldier’s body at the battle of High Bridge in Virginia, only days before the war ended at Appomattox in 1865.

“I think they’re utterly compelling, especially the little girls,” Wellford said. “You can see that they’re dressed well and they’re posed in elaborate studios. There was a lot of thought and effort that went into taking those pictures.”

The other photographs released by the museum offer scant information on their origin. Many lack the dates they were found and locations, but Wellford hopes the public at large could help.

They show:

- A Confederate soldier, standing ramrod tall and staring intently, who left an ambrotype of himself with Mrs. L.M.C. Lee of Corinth, Miss., on the eve of the Battle of Shiloh. The soldier never returned and is presumed to have been killed in battle.

- An officer, the epaulettes hand-painted a still-glinting silver, found on a battlefield near Richmond. The museum identified him as a lieutenant but was unable to determine for which side. It was not unusual for a militia officer from the South to wear a U.S. Army issue uniform dating from before the nation was divided by the Civil War.

- An unidentified woman found in the effects of a soldier identified as Joseph Warren. Her cheeks were painted a pink blush; her earrings, rings, and necklace were painted gold.

- Two young girls flanking a somber-looking woman, found in the effects of Joseph Warren.

- An unidentified couple with two young children. A Union soldier known only as Kilmartin found the photograph on the Fredericksburg battlefield. It was later passed on by Mrs. Walter Blunt of Richmond to the museum.

- An unidentified man found in a tent somewhere in North Carolina during the war.

Wellford said the photographs show there was more to the war than combat and death.

“You have these guys out their killing each other and all sorts of bloodshed and he’s carrying a picture of a little girl,” Welllford said. “It shows the humanity.”

Museum officials said, even 150 years later, it remains important to return the photos to families who had a link to the Civil War. The two girls, they said, still evoke powerful emotions.

“You think about these little girls at home and their daddies never return and they don’t know what happened to them,” said Sam Craghead, a spokesman for the museum. “It’s just a really, really human story.”

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/civil-war-photos-sought-solve-mystery-16538850?page=3#.T9ZYP8WSMvs

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The Sixth of June.

This was posted three Junes ago, I re-post here now.

I came into school today, on a Saturday, to start packing up my room for a move to another room.

But it is the 6th of June.

Instead I am getting nothing done, mesmerized by the scenes, live from Normandy, of the 65th anniversary celebration.

The President is there and so are 250 American veterans of the battle for Normandy,  including one of my good  friends, Buster Simmons, of the 30th Infantry Division. The Greatest Generations Foundation sponsored his visit with 9 other vets and college kids. Now I’m looking for him in the sea of faces.

My son Ned and I watched him last night as a “Person of the Week” on ABC World News in a story I contributed to. If you view the clip, you can see the photograph I provided ABC with, taken by Major Clarence Benjamin, of the liberation of the train. This is the photo that Buster uses when he speaks to high school classes to tell this story.

I am hopeful that we can get Buster to come to our high school for the  liberator-survivor reunion in September.

It was twenty five years ago, on this anniversary, that I wrote an essay in the local newspaper expressing my appreciation for the veterans of World War II. And as I begin to sort through and pack up 20+ years of memories in this room, three things are becoming clear: 1) my love for these men and women and what they did only increases as time passes; 2) the rest of my career will be focused on the promotion of narrative history in the classroom, linking students, veterans and survivors together; and 3) I won’t be getting any packing done this day.

Take a minute to watch Buster in the clip and take his optimism about the future of our nation to heart. Especially if -”you’re an American.”

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the story behind the photograph.

Farsleben train, moment of liberation, Friday the 13th of April,1945. Two American tank commanders and their major in a jeep liberate the train. Major Benjamin snaps the photo.

A high school history teacher sits down with a World War II veteran to record his experiences. Out of the conversation comes the inspiration for a series of events that changes many lives and helps to “repair the world”.

I’ve said for years, since I was first privately shown it by the American tank commanders whom I interviewed in 2001,  that this photo would be destined to become one of the iconic photographs of the Holocaust.

Now it looks as if many people agree with me-since being discovered at my website, it’s now apparently been labeled as one of the 40 Of The Most Powerful Photographs Ever Taken “A moving collection of iconic photographs from the last 100 years that demonstrate the heartbreak of loss, the tremendous power of loyalty, and the triumph of the human spirit.” Look at it. What a story is behind it.

Throughout the past decade or so I have worked very hard to bring the story of the American soldiers and the Holocaust to light. I did my own interview with tank commander Carrol Walsh in July 2001.  Walsh mentioned the train, almost as an afterthought following two hours of conversation (ABC video here), when prompted by his daughter, and directed me to his friend on the West coast, George C. Gross, who had a negative of the photo and ten others of the train liberation that he himself took. He gave me his blessings and his narrative of the liberation and I posted to my school oral history website in 2002. It sat there for four years, then we heard from our first survivor in Australia, a grandmother who had been a little girl on the train. I organized reunions and today we have had 10 of them, with three major ones occurring at our high school to benefit students.

Today, with the help of liberator Frank Towers and survivor’s daughter Varda Weisskopf of Israel we have tracked down nearly 225 survivors who have been very moved to discover fellow survivors and also the soldiers who freed them and who also nursed them back to health. I’ve created this blog to chronicle the unfolding of this story.

We have not yet found the mother and daughter in the photo here. But we have found others who do recognize themselves in Dr. Gross’ photos.

What makes the photos so special is that they reveal the moments of liberation. When you think Holocaust and Jewish prisoners and trains, the images that stay with you are of victims being transported or offloaded at death camps to extermination. In the words of a recent Israel documentary,

Trains in the Holocaust usually carried people to the last stop of their lives. The train of which Matt Rozell heard was a different one. It was going from death to life.

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

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