“I grew up and spent all my years being angry. This meant I don’t have to be angry anymore.”

Two Toronto Holocaust survivors meet their liberators 65 years later

Two survivors of a death train out of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp finally link up with American soldiers who freed them in 1945.

Keith Beaty / Toronto Star

A WWII-era booklet still possessed by Leslie Meisels documents his liberation as a young boy from a train destined for a death camp. Meisels, who eventually ended in Toronto, met a few of the surviving soldiers who freed him and 2,500 prisoners on the train.

By: Catherine Porter, Columnist, Toronto Star, Published on Fri May 10 2013

Leslie Meisels is 86.

Leslie Meisels turned 68 last month.

Every April, since he was 18, Meisels has celebrated his rebirth. Sixty-eight years ago he was on the cusp of death, packed into a cattle car in a freight train with some 2,500 other skeletal Jewish prisoners. He weighed only 75 pounds.

Then a miracle. That train, which had set off from a concentration camp, was liberated by 12 shocked American soldiers in two tanks and an army jeep near Farsleben, Germany.

Up until then, the American GIs had assumed the gruesome stories they had heard about German death camps were just Allied propaganda devised to make them fight harder. But as they unlocked the boxcar doors, they witnessed humanity’s true capacity for evil.

• Leslie Meisels
• Paul Arato

They called it the death train. For Meisels, it was a train of life.

This past week marked the 68th anniversary of V-E Day, the end of the Second World War in Europe. It’s a good moment to tell the story of that train from Bergen-Belsen.

I heard about it last month in an email from a history teacher in upstate New York. He put me in touch with Meisels and Paul Arato: two Holocaust survivors from Hungary who in 1956 escaped their homeland, by then under Communist rule, and settled in North York.

Their stories are remarkably parallel. They grew up in nearby towns in eastern Hungary, they were both imprisoned by the Nazis in 1944, and they were sent first to Austrian farms as slave labourers and then to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany.

Have you ever seen the horrifying Holocaust photos of dead, naked bodies being pushed by a bulldozer into open pits? That was Bergen-Belsen. Some 70,000 people were murdered there, including Anne Frank. They weren’t killed in gas chambers, like at Auschwitz. Instead the Nazis used starvation, sadism and disease here.

Meisels remembers mostly the hunger. They were given only watery turnip soup and a piece of bread each day. In four months, he lost 100 pounds.

Arato, just 6 then, remembers the rattling cold and twice-daily roll calls that often lasted hours. He and his older brother Oscar had to hold their mother upright, she was so weak from typhus. One day a boy in their line smiled because it was his birthday. As his “present,” an SS guard shot him dead. It was Oscar’s birthday the next day.

The horror is ungraspable.

By April 1945, the Nazis were retreating as both the Allied and Soviet armies advanced. One morning, both Meisels and Arato were awakened by guards and told to march. “We dragged our bodies over five kilometres,” says Meisels, “back to the train.”

Trains in Nazi Germany usually led to death. This one was no different. It was destined for another concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, but the guards also had orders to execute passengers. Meisels remembers one afternoon when all males 12 and older were ordered out of the packed boxcars and lined up in front of machine guns. They stood there two hours before being herded back into the putrid cars.

Over six days, the train progressed only 135 kilometres.

Arato remembers peering through between the wooden boxcar slats and seeing the SS guards drop their weapons and start running. Then he glimpsed a tank with a star on it.

The door slid open shortly and they were greeted by stunned American soldiers.

“It was hard for us to believe what we were actually seeing,” says one of those soldiers, Frank Towers, on the phone from Brooker, Fla. “We weren’t prepared for it. We were there to fight a war. We weren’t humanitarians. We didn’t know what to do.”

Says Meisels: “We cried, ‘Oh God, we are going to be free. We are going to be human beings again.’ ”

Towers, who was serving in the 30th Infantry Division, spent a day those taken off the train to convalescence homes and a hospital nearby before he had to push on with his battalion.

Meisels and Arato spent five months recovering in Germany before they could finally return to Hungary to search for the rest of their families. Eleven years later, they escaped Hungary and started their lives for a second time: getting married, building careers, having children, then grandchildren. Decades went by.

Then, a few years ago, their paths crossed at a business meeting. Arato, since retired, was an industrial designer. Meisels ran a family company making plastic moulds. At the end of the meeting, the topic of the Holocaust was raised. They discovered, to their shock, they had both been on that train from Bergen-Belsen.

Around the same time, that high school history teacher in New York named Matt Rozell stumbled upon the story.

To bring Second World War history alive, he’d instructed his Grade 10 students to interview their grandparents about the war. One summer, he visited one of his students’ grandfather: Carrol Walsh, a veteran turned New York State Supreme Court judge.

“After two hours, when the interview was ending, his daughter elbowed him and told him to tell me about the train,” Rozell says.

He learned Walsh had been in one of those tanks that chased away the SS soldiers and liberated the train.

Rozell posted the story on his website, Teaching History Matters, and a few years later a survivor from that train contacted him from Australia. Since then, 240 more have been located.

In 2007, Rozell hosted his first symposium on the train, bringing together survivors and liberators. Arato’s son came across a story about the reunion on the Internet by chance.

Arato told Meisels about it, and two years later they both traveled down to Hudson Falls, N.Y., for the second symposium. There they met Walsh and Towers.

That moment was a second liberation for Arato, now 74.

“A blanket was pulled from me,” he says. “I was always very lonesome. I didn’t share my stories with anybody. I grew up and spent all my years being angry. This meant I don’t have to be angry anymore.”

His wife, Rona, has just published a book about his story called The Last Train: A Holocaust Story.

Meisels visits schools around Toronto to speak about the Holocaust every week.

His message? “Hatred is something we have to fight against. When you hear a derogatory comment, say out loud that it is not right. When you are silent, you are not neutral. You are supporting the oppressor.”

He and Towers went to Washington, D.C. last month to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Holocaust Museum there. Towers, now 96, is the last living U.S. veteran who liberated that train. Walsh died last December.

“We hugged,” Meisels says. “Whenever we are together, I am so overwhelmed by gratitude and joy.”

Truth can be more horrifying and wonderful than fiction. Every life is precious.

CLICK HERE FOR THE STORY OF ANOTHER TORONTO RESIDENT WHO FOUND HERSELF IN THE 1945 PHOTOGRAPHS

 

Catherine Porter usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: cporter@thestar.ca

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/05/10/two_toronto_holocaust_survivors_meet_their_liberators_65_years_later_porter.html

Read Full Post »

Soldiers, survivors converge in Louisville.

Thanks to Alan Smason for a nice article. I have added some clarifying remarks in brackets for posterity and additional accuracy.

Soldiers, survivors converge in Louisville

April 19, 2013

By ALAN SMASON, Exclusive to the CCJN

Frank Towers remembers the day through the haze of 68 years, a footnote at the end of World War II. Matt Rozell was never there, but through his efforts and those of his students, he can dictate with amazing accuracy what happened in Farsleben, Germany those many years ago. Yet to the five Holocaust survivors who met with Towers and Rozell at a World War II reunion this past weekend in Louisville, KY, it was a day they will never forget. It was the day American forces gave them something they thought they would never see again: freedom!

30th Division U.S. Army Infantry Veterans executive secretary Frank Towers, center, welcomes Gideon Kornblum, left, and Kurt Bronner. (Photo by Alan Smason)

At 95 years, Towers is the last of the 30th Division of the United States Army Infantry members who can say he was there and had personal contact with this almost forgotten chapter of history. His testimony shows he was assigned the duty of dealing with what the Nazis regarded as human refuge on April 14, the day after the survivors, crammed into tiny freight cars, starving and in some cases dying, had been freed from their captors by members of the Tank Destroyer Batallion 743 [note: 743rd Tank Battalion. 823rd Tank Destroyer battalion assisted later in the day.]assigned to Tower’s 30th Division named for Andrew Jackson and fondly referred to as “Old Hickory.”

Rozell, a high school teacher in Hudson Falls, NY, is the conduit by which Towers and the remaining 30th Division members have connected to the Holocaust survivors, all now septgenarians or octogenarians, from the first of three trains sent out from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on April 6. It is through his “Teaching History Matters” website set up decades ago and fueled as part of his commitment to teaching his students the lessons of World War II that he has become heralded as an authority on an event that took place years before he was born.

It is through his efforts and the resources he and his students have placed on the Internet that reunions where veterans can meet with survivors have been possible. More than 200 survivors of what Towers calls “the death train” have been identified and contacted through Rozell’s networking efforts.The five survivors who traveled to Louisville to spend time with their families touring the Louisville Slugger plant and other city sites are part of a vast network of Holocaust train survivors now living throughout the United States, Canada, Israel, Europe and as far away as Australia. The manifest of the names of all those loaded on the train is now listed on Rozell’s site and linked with the United States Holocaust Museum and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

This year two train survivors, Ariel University emeritus math professor Gideon Kornblum from Jerusalem and retired graphics printer Kurt Bronner from Los Angeles, were new to the gathering. They joined with retired Duke University medical professor Dr. George Somjen from Durham, NC; Brooklyn College physics professor Micha Tomkiewicz from Brooklyn, NY; and Bruria Bodek Falik from Woodstock, NY, all of whom have attended reunions with the remaining veterans beginning in 2008 and continuing ever since.

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp survivors (from left) Micha Tomkiewicz, Bruria Falik and Kurt Bronner. (Photo by Alan Smason)

In every case these Holocaust survivors brought their wives, children and grandchildren with them to meet and socialize with the children and grandchildren of the men they consider the liberators of their families.

This year only 12 veterans were in attendance. Their number was lessened in December with the passing away in Florida of Carrol Walsh, a retired New York State Supreme Court judge, who was one of the two tank commanders that captured the train in question.

It was through Walsh’s grandson, a student in Rozell’s history class more than a decade ago, that Rozell first learned of what occurred on that date. Beginning in 2001, he heard first-hand in a series of interviews with Walsh how he and fellow tank commander George Gross happened onto the train and its human cargo.

Rozell explained how the train got there. On April 6 the Bergen-Belsen commander, fearing the approach of the Soviet Army [note: the British Army] and not wanting to let the world know of the savagery of the Third Reich and its “Final Solution,” dispatched three separate trains crammed full with prisoners to Theresienstadt concentration camp, also known by the name of its garrison city, Terezin. Of the three trains sent out that date [note: not all three trains were dispatched on same day], the first with 2,500 aboard encountered a series of mishaps that made it fall into the hands of the Americans on April 13. A second train with 1,700 prisoners aboard, using information it gleaned from the first train, eventually made it to Terezin on April 20, where most of its inhabitants were liberated on May 8 by the Soviet Army. The third train with 2,400 souls aboard also was liberated by Soviet troops on April 23 at Trobitz.

With laser pointer in hand, former 1st Lt. Frank Towers prepares to show audience members where the train was liberated at Farsleben. (Photo by Alan Smason)

Walsh and Gross were on a scouting mission along with members of the 119th regiment, having been dispatched from the recently captured town of Hillersleben by Major Clarence Benjamin. Benjamin had come upon several Jews who had escaped the train while it lay in wait. They had told him of the train’s existence and he instructed Walsh and Gross to accompany him.

Despite its holding a full head of steam, the train commanded by SS Captain Hugo Schlegel and its complement of a dozen guards or SS troops were contemplating orders from the German command. In front of them were the Allied forces, while behind them the Soviet troops were advancing. The orders were chilling. Either blow up the train there with explosives found in one of the freight cars or advance the train to the Elbe River, blow up a bridge there and plunge the train into the waters below, killing all aboard including the guards.

The train was standing at a spot so remote it was originally considered as Magdeburg by the World War II veterans who first began to tell their stories. Walsh and Gross saw several Jewish prisoners milling about, but when they pressed their tanks into service, the German guards threw their rifles down, ran away or disrobed, attempting to evade capture by donning the clothes of their captives. It was in vain, though, because their much better physical condition gave them away almost immediately.

Emeritus mathematics professor Gideon Kornblum traveled from Jerusalem to be a part of the reunion of the veterans and survivors. (Photo by Alan Smason)

Gross placed his tank in front of the train, while Walsh went back to the headquarters to alert them to their finding. With their Nazi captors away or arrested, the train’s doors were flung open and the wretched survivors  began to slowly vacate the compartments to which they had been confined.

“These freight cars were much smaller than the ones we see on our normal railroads, about half to two-thirds the size of our freight cars,” Towers recounted. “These freight cars were left over and remodeled after World War I and became known as ’40 and 8s.’ They could easily hold 40 men or eight horses, thus the nomenclature.”

“These cars that they encountered contained 75 to 80 men, women and children,” Towers continued. “They’d been in these cars for six days, stopping at night to get their daily ration, which basically was a kettle of water with some potato skins or lentils. That was their ration for six days.”

When Walsh returned with backup troops, they came face to face with the horrors of the Holocaust, none of which they had seen in their march towards the heart of Germany.

Kurt Bronner, at his first reunion of the 30th Division of the U.S. Army Infantry, gives his thanks to the veterans, (Photo by Alan Smason)

“They had very little sanitary facilities. They were dirty, stinking, flea-infested and lice-infested and put into these cattle cars,” Towers recalled. “When they opened the doors of these cars, many of the victims just fell out to the ground. Some of our men just had to turn and throw up; the stench was so bad. This was inhumane. This was what the Germans were giving them: nothing. They were treated lower than animals.”

Rozell concurred, but gave an interesting sidenote. The German guards had radios and had informed the prisoners of the death less than 24 hours before of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Warm Springs, GA. Many of the U.S. soldiers were so busy fighting battles that they first found out about his death through the freed Holocaust survivors. [note: the reporter may have heard this from someone, but it was not me. I indicated what the soldiers told me- that the column was stopped and they were notified by their own commanders. Shocked, they went on to liberate the train the next day.] The prisoners were fearful at first because the Germans had told them the Americans would shoot them when they found them.

“There was one soldier, an individual I hear many soldiers talk about,” Rozell remembered. “Apparently, he came down from the hill and he said in Yiddish ‘I’m a Jew. I’m Jewish.’ He was from Brooklyn and I’ve heard it from at least a half-dozen people because it does make an impression.”

When 1st Lt. Towers was ordered to the train the following day he had several concerns. “The first thing we wanted to do was get these people medical care,” Towers stated.

“We were sort of in the middle of a no man’s land. We had to get these people out of there,” he noted. “So it fell in my lap to get transportation to get those people out of there and to remove them back to a previous town that had been liberated the day before at Hillersleben.”

Sadly, 30 of the victims on the train had already died of organ failure or starvation and were buried immediately at Farsleben, according to Towers.  Over the course of the next two weeks, nearly another two dozen weakened survivors contracted typhus and died. They were buried in a cemetery in Hillersleben, some five miles away. One of these was Somjen’s father.[note: the number is over 100.]

Little did Towers know, but the interaction he had with transporting the victims of the Holocaust was to be short-lived. Within a few days of arranging their transportation and care by private citizens and for the sick to a nearby German field hospital, he and other segments of the 30th Division were moving out to fight the Germans in what turned out to be their final assault at Magdeburg. Within days the war was over for Towers and the entire 30th Division.

For the survivors they had liberated, most of whom were Hungarian Jews, there were many years of living in displaced persons camps, moving back to their hometowns to attempt to find parents or loved ones and, eventually, emigration to more welcoming countries as Communism gripped the Slavic states.

For Kornblum, who was only five at the end of the war and who was then an orphan, much of the story of his past was brought to life at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem, near where he now resides with his wife Annette. Although several previous attendees had come in from European cities or like Falik had lived in Israel for a time, Kornblum is the first resident of the Jewish state to travel expressly [note: others have travelled to the USA to reunions from Israel] to a 30th Division reunion.

“Originally people gave me the impression that I was aboard the train headed for Tobitz. I was very happy to learn that I was in the so-called Magdeburg train liberated near Farsleben,” Kornblum confessed. He remembers some childhood memories such as celebrating Shabbat with his grandfather on Friday evenings in addition to the slaying of his mother at the hands of the Nazis and the death of his father at Bergen-Belsen. “But I have very little recollection,” he admitted.

Bronner, who was 18 at the time of liberation, had far more vivid memories of that day, even though he spoke no English at that time. “The first  words in English I ever learned was (sic) ‘One only,’” he said. “That was when I went to the bathroom and I closed the door. Having the privacy to be by myself: that was freedom!”

Rozell first became aware of the impact his website was making in 2006, when he was contacted via email by an elderly [note: a grandmother, but not my idea of elderly] woman in Australia who was only seven at the time of the liberation of the train. She was amazed at the images displayed on the site captured on the day of her liberation by Benjamin and Gross. Thus began countless emails and telephone calls to many excited survivors with Rozell’s website as their focus.

When Rozell contacted the archivist at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, he received more material, such as the manifest list of passengers, which enabled him to do outreach with other survivors, who now were scattered across the globe. Rozell, Tomkiewicz and his wife [note: Rozell, Towers and Varda Wiesskopf] have now contacted approximately 240 survivors, all 18 years or under at the time of their liberation [note: a few were older].

Rozell has held several reunions with his high school class in Hudson Falls and has had Towers and Walsh meet with the survivors of the train, beginning in 2007. He has had oral histories recorded on video and transcribed for insertion on his website. Since 2008 the 30th Division members, led by executive secretary Towers, have invited the Holocaust train survivors to be included in their reunion activities as guests. The veterans and their families have joined with the Holocaust victims and their families to ensure that this small event at the end of World War II will always be remembered.

Crescent City Jewish News

Read Full Post »

Woodstock event remembers Holocaust.

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.

Read Full Post »

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

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

Staff Photo by RACHEL MURPHY–Curtis Thompson, an eighth grader , hugs Helen Sperling, a 93-year-old who survived the Holocaust. Sperling shared her story with the eighth grade class on Wednesday, after she finished every student hugged her.

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

Read Full Post »

“I found myself running in front of the machine gun yelling ‘Nyet! Nyet!’

February 25, 2013

Cruise recalls time in WWII

By GREG JORDAN

Bluefield Daily Telegraph

BLUEFIELD, Va. — When Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich finally collapsed, the western Allies and their Soviet Union partners were in no mood to be lenient with the defeated Germans. Western and Russian soldiers alike had reasons to want revenge for the costly war, but one American veteran recently recalled how he and a fellow soldier kept some Soviets from unleashing that vengeance on unarmed German civilians.

 

Claude R. Cruise Jr. is photographed at his home in Bluefield Va. recently. He holds the white armband that he wore to show that he was with the police forces during World War II in Germany. Eric DiNovo, Bluefield Daily Telegraph.

Now 87, Claude Cruise of Bluefield, Va., was 19 years old when he was sent to Europe. He trained with the 16th Armored Division before he became a replacement with the 30th Infantry in northern France. He served in four of five campaigns in Europe. While he missed — and he was glad of it — the Normandy Invasion, he found himself in what became Germany’s last offense in the West, a major attack best known as The Battle of the Bulge.

The Germans pursued their offensive ruthlessly. Cruise was among the first Americans to see the results of that ruthlessness — the bodies of American soldiers murdered during the Malmedy Massacre in Belgium. About 70 surrendered soldiers had been killed. Cruise can still remember seeing their bodies covered with snow. The terrible sight steeled the Americans’ resolve to stop the German advance.

“It made you hate like you never hated before,” he declared.

“They were still lying there,” Cruise said during a 2009 interview with the Bluefield Daily Telegraph. “So we moved into the town. We were surrounded one time on three sides, but we held them back.”

When Germany finally surrendered, Cruise and his fellow soldiers were temporarily assigned to occupation duty. By that time, the Russians and Western Allies had linked up at the Elbe River, a waterway that later became a boundary between West Germany and East Germany. Cruise still has the white armband that states both in English and in German that he was with the police. He did, however, find time to explore a little bit and even had an opportunity to be photographed with some German fighter planes.

Claude R. Cruise Jr. stands next to a captured German Focke Wulf 190 in this World War II photograph taken at Oschersleben, Germany on April 27, 1945.

He soon found himself conversing with Russian troops. He couldn’t speak Russian and the Russians couldn’t speak English, but he soon learned that they both could speak some German. Cruise said he cannot read or write in German, but he can still speak the language.

“I was a messenger to the Russian CP (command post) when we linked up with the Russians on the Elbe River at Magdeburg,” Cruise said. “We were in a jeep and there was a Russian tank sitting on the upside of the road. We stopped and gave them a cigarette.”

The Americans and Russians chatted a little in German about the end of the war; in fact, it had ended only two days earlier. As the men talked, about a dozen people — elderly individuals, younger women and some children — appeared about 100 yards away.

“And while we were talking, all of a sudden this guy I was talking to jumped up on the tank and started firing the machine gun. And I looked over and there was a line of civilians coming down the other side of the road there,” Cruise said. “I found myself running in front of the machine gun yelling ‘Nyet! Nyet!’ (No! No! in Russian). They stopped firing and I went down and pretended I was checking their papers.”

Cruise and fellow soldier Bob Klingensmith kept checking credentials and told the German civilians to move along. The Russians did not like this, but they held their fire.

“Those two Russians were staring at me,” Cruise recalled.

Today, he wonders if any of those numbed, shocked German civilians remember that day when two Americans kept them from dying mere days after Germany surrendered. Some of them were children back in 1945.

His son Jerry Cruise found a possible way to find some of those civilians when he became acquainted with Boris Jaeggi of Switzerland, a publisher of several European magazines who believes he can get Claude Cruise’s account into some Magdeburg newspapers.

The plan now is to have the Cruise’s recollections about the incident translated into German. With luck, the story may stir a childhood memory of the moment when two Americans saved them from a sudden death.

Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Bluefield, WV-http://bdtonline.com/local/x657737218/Cruise-recalls-time-in-WWII

Read Full Post »

I know you are very busy, but please answer my questions.

Soon after liberation, surviving children of the Auschwitz camp walk out of the children’s barracks. Poland, after January 27, 1945. — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the day Soviet troops over ran Auschwitz in 1945. This week I received a note from an Israeli survivor friend, shortly after the passing of one of her liberators, Carrol Walsh. Sara lost over 60 of her family there- and her immediate family was saved only because the day they arrived at Auschwitz, the death machinations were working at full capacity and her transport was rerouted to Belsen. She was liberated on 13 April on the evacuation transport near Farsleben, known here as the Train Near Magdeburg…

In her letter she asks important questions of me. I have responded the best that I could, below.

Dear Matthew,

 We were very sad to hear that Carrol Walsh passed away. Only lately did I get to know him, and he risked his life in order to save ours. It is a pity we did not get to meet more.

I can’t express in words the loving feelings for the young tank commander that for sure always had a smile on his face, and never stopped smiling after we met- 65 years after the victory. I am sure Carrol Walsh made the best out of his life; I was fulfilled to know him and his beautiful family.

I read about his profession in the years of his life. It was interesting to see how much meeting with us affected him.

I thank you for your unusual courage to initiate the exciting meeting [reunion].

I suppose you were very excited for the event you had initiated. Did the idea come in different parts? I am trying to understand the development of your thinking.
When you first wrote to me about the meeting [invitation to the proposed reunion], it was on the day we were released- the 13th of April. I got home after meeting my brothers and celebrating the release [liberation]day. I couldn’t relax, I immediately told all my brothers. I was so happy, as if it was happening again.

The meeting completed a missing part in the picture for me, after all the horrifying things we went through we couldn’t even dream of a miracle like that coming out of the blue.

I cannot go back more to the extermination camps and escort groups because I don’t have the physical nor mental power to do that anymore.

There are questions that bother me.

Are you able to answer them?

Why shouldn’t the world forget and let this be over?  

A. So, some people do want to forget. Others will say that it did not happen. For those reasons, it must never be forgotten. This is the biggest crime in the history of the world.

As Walsh states, how could humanity have stood by and let that happen?

Does my work, the hard work I do, do anything against the forgetting?

A.The most impressionable minds in the world are those of the youth. It is they who the Nazis “educated”; it made it easier for the crimes to be committed. This is why they must hear now.

The work that you, and I do, has an impression. I hope to continue this work after you must slow down. Please remember that.

 

You are a historian, should the memory be kept?

A.The memory must be kept. As educators it is our duty to keep it alive. We must fight those who trivialize or denigrate its importance.

Is there a proper way to keep the memory?

A.There is no one way except to be open to the discussion of humanity and how humans could do this to one another. We must also bear in mind however, that the soldiers who helped the suffering to new life bore their own pains in doing so, yet also made a choice to redeem humanity. Some did not sleep soundly for years.

I think this is so, and also must not be forgotten. The war brought out the most evil in the world. But I think it also revealed some goodness in the form of the soldiers who liberated or otherwise cared for the victims.

Who should be documenting everything, the “victim” or the “aggressor”?

A.The aggressor fades from memory. New generations asks questions. It is true that some are bothered by the questions. But the young will always be curious and want to know- is this a stain on the German people? I know some Germans today who work very hard to keep the memory alive, as you also do.

The victims give the testimony. This is all they can do. But it is the evidence of the crime, and one that new generations must work with. That is why your work is so important.

Who is in charge of making the conclusions?

A.I would say that institutions such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem are the world leaders in this area. I have been trained, well, I should hope, by the USHMM. I do not know enough about the German institutions but I hope to raise enough funds to travel to the camps and study there this summer.

Read Full Post »

WE WILL BE THERE, WILL YOU??

Matthew Rozell, 30th Infantry Veterans of WWII, Holocaust survivors at Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum, March 2, 2012.

Frank Towers’ invitation to soldiers, survivors, interested parties and their families to come to Louisville in the spring. The soldiers have convened annually since the end of World War II; since 2008, thanks to the project, the 30th Infantry Division has hosted Holocaust survivors and their families as well for very emotional, uplifting, and fun times. Email for details.

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

Don’t forget the dates!!       April 11 – 12 – 13, 2013

Don’t forget to make your Hotel Reservation

and Registration!!

Hotel Crowne Plaza,  Louisville, KY

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

Dear Fellow 30 Division Members and Friends:

I hope you all enjoyed your holiday and that the New Year holds only good things for you and your family.

Now that the holidays are over it is time to focus on making your reservations for the Reunion.  Included are the Pre-Registration Form and the Reservation Form and the information to make your hotel reservations. Please do it NOW.

We have a great program planned and will include a trip to the Louisville Slugger Factory and Museum, a professional photographer that will take a picture of you and/or your family (so bring your medals and ribbons to show off).  We will also have one of Louisville’s noteworthy news casters, Ken Schulz, MC our banquet on Saturday evening.  Our entertainment will include a local bagpiper as well as others.

Why come to Louisville?

Louisville, is a city of urban neighborhoods that have been revitalized, and some of our best known shopping areas are the Bardstown Road and Frankfort Avenue corridors with their small shops and plentiful locally owned restaurants.  The homes and buildings in the Old Louisville neighborhood is one of the largest historic preservation districts featuring Victorian architecture in the U.S.  The Downtown area has had significant renovations over the last few years with the construction of the YUM! Center which is home court for our Louisville Cardinals men’s and women’s basketball teams.  The Center, along with Waterfront Park and Fourth Street Live, have attracted new housing, shops and restaurants breathing new life into the area.

Louisville has museums to interest everyone..  Home to the Frazier International History Museum; The Muhammad Ali Center; The Louisville Science Center; The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft and many, many more.

Our hotel, the Crowne Plaza, is locally owned and operated.  It is near the airport and offers free shuttle service from the airport to the hotel.  The Crowne Plaza also offers many amenities including indoor/outdoor pool, fitness center, boutique shop, 24 hours business center, complimentary Wi-Fi, and more.

You can see Louisville is the place to be, so much so that Louisville was named “The Top U.S. Travel Destination for 2013″ by Lonely Planet’s, the world’s leading travel publisher.

We are looking forward to having you here and sharing some of our history and hospitality with you, and most of all, to meet many of your former friends and colleagues.

Best Regards,

Bill Vaughan. President

30th Infantry Division Veterans of WWII

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

Taps – 2012

(Last 6 Months)

ADAMS, Cleveland L. 30 MP Plat. 7/30/12 Stockbridge, GA

ADKINSON, Bruce 743 TkBn B 6/17/12 Beverly, MA

DUMEY JR, (DuMay) Leon 120-G 11/23/12 Cape Girardeau, MOM

FARKAS, Louis 119-I 12/ /12 Colton, OR

HOGUE, Donald W. 117 K 6/12/12 Montevallo, AL

HOUCK, Arthur T. 120-K 6/16/12 Hampstead, MD

LAZINGER, Sol 117-B 6/13/12 Philadelphia, PA

MAXEY, James C. 120 CN 6/ 29 /12 Tullahoma, TN

MILLER, Edmund L. 120-H 9/07/12 Pewamo, MI

PITRUZZELLO, Joseph S. 119-L 5/02/08* Alexander City, AL

PRUITT, Frank H. 120-2BnHq 12/10/12 Spartanburg, SC

PULVER, Murray S. 120-B 9/21/12 Peoria, AZ

STANFORD, Arna V. Widow 8/18/10* Williamsburg, VA

STECKLER, William 105 Engr. B 9/09/12 Palm Harbor, FL

SULLIVAN, Thomas “Jack” 118 FA 8/07/12 Savannah, GA

TURNER, Woodrow W. 117-F 8/15/12 Littleton, CO

UBBES, Jean M 743 TkBn-B 7/28/12 Kalamazoo, MI

VOORHIS, Thomas K. 120-K 8/06/12 Manteca, CA

WALSH, Carrol S. 743 TkBn-D 12/17/12 Sarasota, FL

YOUNG SR., James E. 120 6/26/12 Butler, PA

Those with an asterisk (*) were received too late for a prior publication.

Our Most Sincere Condolences to the Families of These Lost Heroes

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

As most of you already know, men of the 743^rd Tk. Bn., and  30^th Infantry Division, liberated over 2.500 victims of the Holocaust from Bergen-Belsen on 13 April 1945.

We will be honored to have some of these Survivors join with us again at Louisville.  Two of them have never been with us before, so they will give a resume of their life history, so be sure to come to hear these stories that have never been told before.

One of these Survivors will be coming all of the way from Jerusalem, Israel, joining with other members of his family, to meet his Liberators for the first time.  The other Survivor will be coming from San Diego, CA with his daughter, also to meet for the very first time with some of his liberators.

To make it clear, each of you veterans were “Liberators” of this group of victims.  Although you may not have had any personal hands-on experience with them at the time of their liberation, You were doing your job which was supporting the action in the local vicinity of this tremendous discovery and the release of these frail humans to Freedom.

Join with us on this occasion to meet these Survivors that you helped to liberate 68 years ago !!

This will be an Historic event !!  68 years to the date of their Liberation !!!

 

Read Full Post »

The day of April 13 1945 was a Friday and a sunny and windy day.

Friday the 13th.

This account comes to me from a survivor’s son who lives in Hungary. He had read of Carrol Walsh’s passing on the internet and contacted me. It is Carrol who is commanding one of these tanks. Sgt. George Gross commanded the other, and took photographs.

I just came across this website . My father was on this train.
He passed away twenty years ago, in April 1992.

Here is an excerpt from his memoirs about his liberation day.
—————————————————-

Translation from my father’s Memoirs pp. 302-304.
————————————————-

The day of April 13 1945 was a Friday and a sunny and windy day. In the morning, the SS opened the doors of the freight cars, after they had argued with each other whether they should kill us with their submachine guns. But the US troops were too close.

——————————————————————-

Perhaps it was an older SS man who prevented our execution. Later that day, a Jewish woman, who had been his lover in the camp, saved him from becoming a prisoner of war or worse. She got him civilian clothes, I do not know how. The same woman became the lover of an American soldier later.
——————————————————————

Several hundred people wrapped in rags streamed through the open doors, if they could be called people at all. We were all mere skeletons.

The train was idling in a deepening, so I climbed uphill, across a road and to a field. I was pulling out potatoes planted on the field, when a motorcycle approached. It was a motorcycle with a side-car. There was an elegant SS or Nazi leader in the front: I could not decide, since he was wearing a mixture of uniform and civilian clothes. It must have been his wife sitting behind him and his child in the side-car. He pulled over and offered me a cigarette. I told him I did not smoke, so he closed his silver-looking cigarette-case and started the engine.
He seemed to hesitate about the direction he should take.

Prisoner taken. Photo by tank commander George C Gross, April, 1945.

Then two small American tanks arrived. I was standing in the middle of the road, and noticed that the American soldier leaning out of the turret of one of the tanks aimed his gun at me.
The tank came closer and closer, and the soldier lowered his submachine gun. I must have looked terrible, so he did not take me for an enemy. I was lucky he had not shot me from the distance, since my small coat and boots vaguely resembled a military uniform. Lice were crawling all over my clothes and skin.

The few hundred former inhabitants of the concentration camp surrounded the tanks right away. Suddenly somebody remembered that the SS guarding us were still in the carriages. The SS were caught quickly, and lined up. The “intrepid” SS were trembling so heavily that their pants were flapping.

The first thing a Jewish woman asked from the soldier leaning out from the tank was money, and she received a dollar bill. She must have established her future with this dollar.

My attention was drawn to something else: in the rear of the tank there was a box of canned food. I climbed under the tank, emerged at its end, and pulled out a can. It turned out that I stole a can of oranges. This was my luck. I ate the potatoes charred in the can with the oranges, and probably this combination saved my life. Everyone who ate meat or anything greasy died within hours or within one or two days at the latest.

I felt fever in my body, undressed completely naked in front of staring women, and went into the ice-cold water of the lake next to the railroad. People warned me not to do this, but I went into the water, felt good, felt that I got rid of the lice and the burning heat of the fever. When I put on my rags again, I felt the fever ever stronger.

I asked an American soldier to sign the photo of my fiancee (I still have this photo). To my surprise, he signed the name Churchill. I thought he was joking. But he reassured me that his name was really Churchill.

(Once I read about a father named Churchill, who went to see his son’s grave in Vietnam during that war. The report mentioned that the father had been a soldier in World War II. He must have been my Churchill)

In the evening, there were news that we should flee, because the Germans pushed back the Americans. The Germans would massacre us for sure, the women had pulled out material for parachutes from a carriage in order to make clothes.

I was already so weak that I did not care whether the returning Germans would kill me: I stayed in one of the carriages, and fell asleep.

On Saturday, April 14, German peasant [horse-drawn] carts came for us by some order, so I was carried to Hillersleben. I dragged myself to the first floor of the first building, it looked like an office building, lay down under the sink of the bathroom, and fell asleep.

I am sure the American soldiers had no idea who we were and what we went through.

Read Full Post »

“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.”

{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

Sixty-some odd years after he was a litter bearer carrying the dead and dying from a death train liberated by US troops in World War II, Grier Taylor of Batesburg-Leesville got a call from Israel. It was a daughter of one of the victims, thanking him for his service. “Without you, I would not be here,” said the woman. – TIM DOMINICK /tdominick@thestate.com

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 the other end of the line spoke halting English, but her message was clear: She wanted to thank Taylor for helping to save her father’s life.
Her father, now a physician in Israel, was a 14-year-old boy on April 13, 1945 – one of about 2,500 filthy, starving prisoners of Germany’s infamous Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The suffering souls – 700 of them children – had been packed into boxcars in a veritable death train. They were bound for an uncertain future in another camp farther away from the front lines when they were liberated by advancing American troops.

“She said, ‘Merry Christmas.’ I said, ‘Happy Hanukkah,’” said Taylor, sitting at the dining room table of his tidy home on Lake Murray. “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.”
The call was just the latest chapter in an almost decade-long effort to learn more about the “death train” and the U.S. soldiers who liberated it.
Her path to Taylor  ran though an Upstate New York high school website, a retired soldier in Florida and, finally, one of Taylor’s Army buddies.
“I told him that I salute him for having left his family and gone to Europe to liberate the continent from the yoke of Nazi occupation,” she wrote The State in an email from her home in  Israel. “I called to thank him and told him about the story of the train. And I told him also that I extend to him my most heartfelt appreciation for helping to save my father.”
‘60,000 alive and mountains of corpses’
During the war, her grandparents and father were rounded up by the Nazis in Budapest, Hungary. In 1944, he was separated from his parents and taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northwestern Germany.
Bergen-Belsen had originally been a prisoner of war camp – Stalag 11-C – for Russian soldiers. But in 1943 it was converted to house “elite” {webmaster note-not my words.}Jews from around Europe. They were to be used as bargaining chips to exchange for German prisoners and for other purposes, said Matthew Rozell, a high school history teacher from Hudson Falls, N.Y., who began doing oral histories of World War II veterans as a class project in the early 1990s. It was his class website – teachinghistorymatters.wordpress.com – that helped her on her search.
As the war progressed and the Russians began moving forward on the Eastern Front, the Nazis transferred more and more prisoners from camps in the east to Bergen-Belsen.
By 1945, “it was huge, massive,” Rozell said of the camp. “When it was liberated on April 15 by the British, they found 60,000 (people) alive and mountains of corpses. ”
Some estimates put the number of dead at the end of the war at 50,000. Still, Bergen-Belsen wasn’t considered a death camp like Auschwitz in Poland.
“They didn’t have gas chambers,” Rozell said, “but they had crematoriums because people were dropping like flies from starvation and disease.”
Six days in locked boxcars
Bergen-Belsen was located in the northwestern German province of Lower Saxony, near the town of Belsen.
As the war neared its end and the Third Reich was collapsing – with the British and Americans driving east across Germany and the Soviets closing in from the west – the Nazi regime decided to relocate many of the prisoners to a camp in Czechoslovakia. They were loaded into three trains – about 1,700 to 2,500 per train. It was a nerve-wracking experience for the prisoners.
“These people didn’t know where they were going,” Rozell said. “It was never a good idea to get on a train to places unknown.”
One train made it to the Czech camp at Theresienstadt. Another was liberated by the Russians.
But a third train – the one on which he rode – was stopped en route near the town of Farsleben, Germany, southwest of Berlin. The tracks had been bombed by the Allies, impeding the Germans’ retreat to the east.
There, the prisoners waited for six days and seven nights, packed shoulder to shoulder in locked boxcars, with little or no food and a single bucket as a toilet.
They were part of what Rozell called “the greatest crime in the history of the world – the Holocaust.”
Liberation for some, too late for others
On April 13, 1945 – Friday the 13th – some tanks rolled in and the Nazi guards ran away. It was a lucky day for some, as tattered, emaciated and utterly thankful people poured out of the cars and tried to embrace the American soldiers.
But for many others, it was simply too late. They had died in the car, and others would die in the coming days.
The American tankers were a reconnaissance element of the 743rd tank battalion. The battalion was attached to the 30th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army – the Old Hickory Division formed at Fort Jackson from soldiers recruited or drafted from the Carolinas and Tennessee.
Lt. Frank Towers was a headquarters liaison officer with the 30th Division. He saw the train first-hand and through the years penned a 32-page paper chronicling “The Death Train at Farsleben, Germany.”
“We had seen our own men killed and maimed, torn apart. We expected that. That was part of war,” said Towers, now of Gainesville, Fla. and the 30th Division’s historian. “But when we saw these people – walking skeletons, dirty, stinking, infested with lice and fleas – we didn’t want to get close to them. We didn’t know what kind of diseases they had. It was a miserable lot of people. They fell out (of the boxcars) like cordwood.”
The tankers – among them George Gross, who passed away in 2009, and Carrol “Red” Walsh, still living, who Rozell had interviewed for his class – had to move on the next day.
“We were fighting a war, not babysitting people,” Towers said.
So Towers got the job of finding transportation to take the survivors to a former Luftwaffe (German Air Force) hospital near Hillersleben, Germany. It was an 18-mile circuitous route because most of the bridges in the area had been bombed by the Allies or blown up by retreating German troops.
That’s when Taylor’s story begins.
‘The most horrible sight and smell I have ever seen’
Taylor was drafted in 1942 when he turned 21 years old. At the time, he was living in West Columbia.
He went through basic training and eventually became a litter (stretcher)-bearer with the 95th Medical Battalion.
The men of the 95th were trained to treat soldier for injuries suffered by poisonous gas. But by the time they reached Omaha Beach in Normandy 30 days after the D-Day invasion, it was apparent that poisonous gas – so deadly in World War I – would not be used in World War II.
So the 95th became a regular medical battalion, setting up aid stations behind Gen. George Patton’s Third Army as it raced across France. Taylor’s main job was to poke through bombed out buildings, looking for wounded soldiers or dead bodies, and then haul them back to the aid station for treatment or burial.
The 95th worked its way across France and Belgium, and then hooked up with the Ninth Army as it drove through Germany. It found itself in the wake of the 30th Infantry Division, operating the hospital in Hillersleben when the death train refugees started pouring in.
“When we took them off the trucks, we didn’t know if they were dead or alive,” Taylor said. “We had a tent set up in the yard for a morgue. We took their pulse and either took them to the morgue or set them up in the hospital.
“They had all urinated and (defecated) on themselves for so long. I was sick at my stomach, close to vomiting. It was the most horrible sight and smell I have ever seen, and I hope to God I never have to see that again.”
‘I was touching history’
Flash forward to 2005.
Towers met a survivor of the train living in Florida – Ernest Kan. {Kan was not on the train but liberated nearby at the Polte Ammunition Works.}He also began penning his remembrances of the incident. And then Kan came across Rozell’s website. Rozell and Towers began collaborating, locating other survivors and liberators, attempting to unite them.
{Survivor} in Israel saw Rozell’s website and called Towers to thank him.
“It was a shock to me,” she said. “Two days I did nothing; I just thought about it. I felt like I was touching history to talk to the American soldier who saved my father’s life.”
She then joined Rozell, Towers and others in locating survivors and liberators and bringing them together. She even hosted a reunion in Israel last April.
Taylor’s Army buddies were located – Walt “The Babe” Gantz of Scranton, Pa., and he told her about Taylor and two others who served in the 95th – Bob Shatz of Upstate New York and Fred Nicoletti of New Hampshire.

“Immediately, I wanted to call him,” she said of Taylor. “I felt it is my duty to talk with every soldier who was there, to thank them.”
Taylor finds that remarkable.
“Her crusade is beyond what I have words to explain,” he said.
The phone call brightened his Christmas.
Taylor stresses that he played a minor part in the death train story, and in the war, for that matter.
“I didn’t do all of that myself, you know,” he said, laughing. “I did have a little help winning that war.”
And as for those who say there wasn’t a Holocaust?
“I was there and I saw it,” Taylor said. “It was just pure hate, and I pray that we never reach anything close to it again.”
Video excerpts from reporter Jeff Wilkinson’s interview with World War II vet Grier Taylor-below-highly recommended

www.thestate.com/2012/01/29/2132112/remembering-the-death-train.html

Read Full Post »

Quotes from American Soldiers/Holocaust Survivors Reunion 9/22-26/09

Quotes from American Soldiers/Holocaust Survivors Reunion   9/22-26/09

Compiled by Mrs. Hales, English teacher, Hudson Falls High School.

You are free to share or use this page, provided the following conditions are met:

• Attribution — You must attribute the work. That means you need to credit me, even if you are a student working on a last minute paper for your history teacher at 2am, searching for that killer quote. Your teacher will be impressed; otherwise, he or she will go online and find the quote the same way you did, and let you have it for stealing. So I’ll make it easy: Rozell, Matthew. Quotes from the American Soldiers/Holocaust Survivors Reunion, Hudson Falls High School, New York, USA;   9/22-9/26/2009. World War II Living History Project/Teaching History Matters http://teachinghistorymatters.wordpress.com. Accessed (you fill in the blank with a date here).
• Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes. Please don’t try to make money off of our  educational project.
• No Derivative Works — You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. If you want to copy it for use on your website, fine, but it must be copied in its entirety and duly credited with the reciprocal link.

Credit Matthew Rozell and World War II Living History Project/Teaching History Matters. .. If re-posting  include the link, http://teachinghistorymatters.wordpress.com.

• “How could we [the world] have stood by and let that happen to them?  We owe them.”   Carrol Walsh, 743^rd Tank Battalion, Liberator
• “I often wonder what this world would be like if those 6 million had never perished.”  Frank Towers, 30^th Infantry Division, Liberator
• “Against all odds I am standing here before you.”  Steven Barry, Holocaust Survivor, (Hungary, Florida)
• “I tell my story so that they might tell the next generation.”  Sara Atzmon, Holocaust Survivor, artist, (Hungary, Israel)
• “Love gives us wings to soar above it all.”  Sara Atzmon, Holocaust Survivor, artist, (Hungary, Israel)
• “Hatred is something we must fight against.”  Leslie Meisels, Holocaust Survivor, (Hungary, Toronto)
• “Silence helps the oppressors.” Leslie Meisels, Holocaust Survivor, (Hungary, Toronto)
• “I tell my story so that it won’t become your future.”  Leslie Meisels, Holocaust Survivor, (Hungary, Toronto)
• “We cannot be lax at all.  We must keep the faith.  We must tell others.”  Buster Simmons, Chaplain, 30^th Infantry Division Veterans of WWII.
• “I’m listed as a liberator, but I’m a survivor of WWII.”  William Gast, 743^rd Tank Battalion
• “We keep the faith.”  Motto of the 743^rd Tank Battalion
• “Freedom is not free; there is a high price tag attached.”  William Gast, 743^rd Tank Battalion
• “We must ever be thankful [for our freedom].  We must NEVER take freedom for granted.”  William Gast, 743^rd Tank Battalion
• “After they gave us back our lives, we needed to live each day.”  Paul Arato, Holocaust Survivor, (Hungary;  Toronto, Canada)
• “I live some of the horrors of 65 years ago everyday.”  Paul Arato, Holocaust Survivor, (Hungary;  Toronto, Canada)
• “You have the power to heal the world.”  Lev Raphael, son of Holocaust survivors
• “Don’t be a bystander.”  Mr. Rozell, see below.

Credit Matthew Rozell and World War II Living History Project/Teaching History Matters. .. If re-posting  include the link, http://teachinghistorymatters.wordpress.com.

Read Full Post »