Because History Matters- The Odyssey of a History Teacher

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2015-05-04T03:35:00.000-07:00

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Why It Matters...

2011-01-19T01:59:00.000-08:00

This online journal was begun to chronicle the unfolding of something very special in my career that is, I think, profoundly affecting my life and the lives of others- the re-connection of a train transport full of 2500 Holocaust survivors with the American soldiers who liberated them on April 13th, 1945 near Magdeburg, Germany.

I am the history teacher from a small rural town in upstate New York, USA who is caught up in the middle of it all. My students and I don't have a high profile website , but if you keep reading, you will see that several people's lives have been changed by it.

On this web log you will find my posts. The first, "Remember", was written years ago as a reaction to the "commercialization" of the American holiday of Memorial Day. It kind of describes how my World War II Living History Project came about, and I am proud of the fact that it began long before paying tribute to this generation or conducting oral history became fashionable. It's about time Ken Burns caught up with us.

The second, "A Train near Magdeburg", is a brief summary of this special story, showing how the power of the Internet is changing lives.

The next two (lengthy) posts are news articles that describe the Holocaust survivor/liberator reunion our high school hosted on September 14th, 2007, as a byproduct of this educational project. The Associated Press article by Chris Carola was picked up and run either in print or on the Web by almost every major newspaper in the United States, and many abroad, including the Jerusalem Post. The CBS Evening News even did a story on it.

In short order I was hearing from survivors who were on that train transport from every "corner" of the globe. These conversations and emails were full of emotion, and I try to imagine the feelings as many of them contacted their actual liberators for the first time. Of course I can't- only they can. Yet in speaking to many of them it is apparent that April 13th, 1945 was the day they were reborn. Some have actually discovered themselves in these amazing photographs taken on that day. The detail that many of them remember is amazing. And as one of them told me yesterday, the gratitude they feel is indescribable.

What follows is the unfolding of this story. I hope you will find them as moving as I have. Let me know what you think.

Matthew Rozell
January, 2008
marozell@hfcsd.org

"Remember..."

2011-01-18T20:47:00.000-08:00

Scene #1: The morning of December 16, 1944. A lonely outpost on the Belgian frontier.

In subzero temperatures, the last German counteroffensive of World War II had begun. Nineteen thousand American lives would be lost in the Battle of the Bulge. “Hell came in like a freight train. I heard an explosion and went back to where my friend was. His legs were blown off-he bled to death in my arms.” The average age of the American soldier? 19.

Scene #2: Memorial Day, 60 years later. In a small town in the United States, it is a day off from work or school and it is the unofficial start to the busy summer season. We sit in our lawn chairs, we chat with neighbors and sip our drinks when the gentlemen with the flag march past.

The holiday known originally as "Decoration Day" originated at the end of the Civil War when a general order was issued designating May 30, 1868, "for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion." When Congress passed a law formally recognizing the last Monday in May as the day of national celebration, we effectively got our three-day weekend and our de facto beginning of summer.

Of the sixteen million American men and women who served in WWII, a half million died on the field of conflict. In 2007, over 1200 veterans of World War II quietly slip away every day. The national memory of the war that did more than any other event in the last century to shape the history of the American nation is dying with them. Incredibly, it comes as a shock to most Americans today that the “Battle of the Bulge” didn’t originate as a weight-loss term.

In the high school where I teach, I have been inviting veterans to my classroom to share their experiences with our students. As their numbers dwindled, I smartened up, bought a camera, and began to record their stories. We’ve spoken at length with a pilot forced to bail out at 28,000 feet of his flaming B-17 bomber, only to watch crew members die in the subsequent explosion and then be taken prisoner himself. We have had conversations with POWs who survived forced marches in brutal weather, and with Jewish infantrymen who were among the first to liberate the death camp at Dachau. We have met men who were handcuffed to Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg and who were assigned to suicide watch guard shifts there after fighting their way across Germany. We can imagine what it was like to sail eerily into Pearl Harbor 36 hours after the Japanese attack and see no lights except the USS Arizona still blazing with the bodies of hundreds of Americans entombed in it. We are with the torpedo bomber pilot as he takes off from the flight deck of the carrier USS Yorktown during the epic battle of Midway, and is forced to land on the deck of another carrier as the Yorktown burns and later slides to the bottom of the sea. We intently listen to a blind Marine describe what it was like to lose his eyesight fifty-nine years to the day of his being struck by mortar fragments, not once, but twice in the same day at Okinawa (and he told us that " the hardest part was telling my mother"). Across a kitchen table I have discussions with other veterans, including a former 17 year old describing what it was like to share a foxhole with a headless fellow US Marine on Iwo Jima. My students and I are just "one person away" from the shock of Pearl Harbor, the chaos at Omaha Beach and the Huertgen Forest, the horrors of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Peleliu Island.

Sixty-plus years ago these men and women saved the world. I think about this: by the time my teaching career ends in 10 or 15 years, almost all of the survivors will be gone.

It’s not enough that I have an interest in their stories. I have long looked out into a sea of faces, some students mildly interested in what I have to say, but many others displaying a quiet and disturbing apathy about the past. What is infinitely reassuring and comforting to me, however, is that they all seem to have a genuine interest in a “real” connection with the past, with a person who becomes the ultimate source, because he or she was there.

These men and women have helped to spark students’ interest in finding out more about our nation’s past and the role of the individual in shaping it. On our website we have worked to weave the stories of our community’s sacrifices into the fabric of our national history. And that, to me, is what teaching history should be all about. After all, if we allow ourselves to forget about the teenager who bled to death in his buddy’s arms, if we overlook the sacrifices it took to make this nation strong and proud, we may as well forget everything else. Where will we be when there is nothing important about our past to remember? The answer is found in simple study of any other great civilization in history that allowed the collective memory of the past that once bound them together to be trivialized and blurred, to be eroded away and forgotten-

They're not here anymore.

Remember.

“A Train Near Magdeburg”

2011-01-17T12:18:00.000-08:00

“A Train Near Magdeburg”

(This story takes place in the closing days of World War II, as American and British forces pushed into Germany from the west and the Soviet Red Army closed in from the east.)

On the morning of Friday, April 13^th, 1945, the US 9th Army was fighting its way eastward in the final drive through central Germany toward the Elbe River. A small task force was formed to investigate a train that had been hastily abandoned by German soldiers near the town of Magdeburg, Germany. The boxcars were filled with Jewish families that had survived the infamous concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen and were now being transported away from the advancing Allies to another death camp location. Scores of children were among the prisoners.

Two tank crews were charged with guarding these newly liberated people until the tanks could be relieved and the people could be properly cared for. By the afternoon of the 13th, one tank alone was responsible for safeguarding 2500 refugees. A small guard of emaciated Finnish soldiers who were also liberated that day set up the perimeter guard. The American tank commander had a small Kodak camera. He took several photographs that day of the newly freed men, women and children and spent some time talking to them through one of the survivors who spoke English. The following morning he was relieved, but the events of that day were never far from his thoughts. Later, he wrote them down for posterity, and filed them away with his photographs.

Sixty-plus years after the event, survivors all over the world who had been children aboard the death train are finding their rescuers’ narratives and photographs of the day of their liberation near Magdeburg in 1945 on an oral history website produced by a high school teacher, Matthew Rozell, and his students at Hudson Falls High School in upstate New York.

"Holocaust survivors reunite with vet"

2010-09-15T18:41:00.000-07:00

By Chris Carola, Associated Press Writer

HUDSON FALLS, N.Y. — Carrol "Red" Walsh didn't know what to expect when his patrol came across a train stopped along a hillside during the U.S. Army's dash across northern Germany in the final, chaotic days of World War II.

In and around the abandoned line of freight cars milled some 2,500 emaciated and ragged Jewish prisoners from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. There were scores of children.

"They were just jammed, crammed in there," said Walsh, a 24-year-old tank commander in April 1945.

On Friday, the now 86-year-old retired state Supreme Court judge reunited with three of the survivors of the Nazi death train his unit found near Magdeburg, about 50 miles southwest of Berlin. The train was on its way to another concentration camp.

The veteran and the survivors were to take part in a daylong program hosted at the high school in this Hudson River village north of Albany.

The reunion has its roots in a class project launched by Matthew Rozell, a history teacher at Hudson Falls High School. In the early 1990s, he created a special project to collect stories from local veterans and post them on a Web site.

One of Rozell's students was Walsh's grandson, who told the teacher about his grandfather's wartime service. Several years ago, Rozell interviewed Walsh and George Gross, a fellow tank commander from Spring Valley, Calif.

Their account of the train liberation was posted on the project's Web site, along with black-and-white photographs taken that day by Gross and the major leading their patrol.

That's where some of the child survivors of the Nazi train, now in their 60s and 70s, found their story.

"All of this to a large degree came out of a high school project. This to me is fascinating," said survivor Micha Tomkiewicz, a Polish Jew from Warsaw who was 6 when he and his mother and uncle were liberated.

Tomkiewicz had an earlier reunion with Gross and his family. He said he's looking forward to meeting Walsh, and he credited Rozell for the reunions.

"It's pretty humbling," Rozell said.

Tomkiewicz was to be joined by fellow survivors Peter Lantos, a neurologist from London, and Fred Spiegel, an author from Howell, N.J.

Friday's program includes a viewing of "A Train Near Magdeburg," a 10-minute DVD produced by two of Rozell's students, followed by talks from each of the three survivors.

For Walsh, it will be his first face-to-face meeting with anyone from the train since he came upon them on what turned out to be their lucky day -- Friday the 13th, April, 1945.

"I had almost forgotten about the incident itself, really, over the years," Walsh said. "It was almost like another day in combat. Nothing surprised me by then."

~As a result of the worldwide publicity garnered by the attention to this story, eighteen more child survivors have contacted our school and their liberators since the reunion took place on September 14th, 2007. Read on... Special thanks to Chris Carola of the Associated Press for his interest in the story.

"Soldiers reunite with Nazi death train survivors"

2010-09-14T21:09:00.000-07:00

Soldiers reunite with Nazi death train survivors
By OMAR AQUIJE, Glens Falls Post-Star

Friday, September 14, 2007 9:09 PM EDT

HUDSON FALLS, NEW YORK-
The audience stood, applauded and cheered after five men shook hands, smiled and faced the packed crowd.

What the audience witnessed was history — an unexpected chapter to an extraordinary tale that began 62 years ago in Germany, at the end of World War II, and continued Friday at Hudson Falls High School.

The experience was overwhelming for Carrol Walsh, who was among the five men on stage.
After all, it made him recall the events of April 13, 1945, when he and his tank battalion investigated a train that German troops had abandoned near Magdeburg, Germany.
The battalion discovered 2,500 Jews crammed in boxcars en route to a death camp.
The Jewish families had been held captive for two years, during which they survived the infamous concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen and were forced to live with little food in unsanitary conditions under German military watch.
But on that fateful, April day, they were liberated, thanks to Walsh, his buddy, Sgt. George Gross, and others in the battalion, which included two tanks.
If not for their help, Fred Spiegel, Micha Tomkiewicz and Peter Lantos may not have survived to see the end of the war, let alone the emotional connections made during Friday’s event.
"I feel very emotional about the meeting and the get-together, never having ever to imagine that I would meet anyone who was on that train," said Walsh after the morning program. He is now a retired judge who moved to Hudson Falls in July after living in Johnstown.

"To see these people in the flesh is simply an overwhelming, emotional experience," he said.

Tomkiewicz, who is now the director of environmental studies at the Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, could only remember pieces of his liberation because he was a child at the time. Therefore, he and other survivors started searching for more details to fill in the blanks.
But the information he obtained left him with a broad and abstract image of the past — until Friday.
"Suddenly, we have names. We can shake hands. We can put our own background in a context we couldn’t put before," Tomkiewicz said after the morning program. "Suddenly you have an event that crystallizes that scenario."

The fifth man on stage was Matthew Rozell, not a passenger on the train, but rather a Hudson Falls High School history teacher who created a World War II history project in the 1980s to generate student interest in that war. The project has since evolved into a detailed Web site that chronicles war stories from local military veterans.

One of his students was Walsh’s grandson, which is what led Rozell to interview Walsh in 2001. During the interview, Walsh’s daughter suggested he tell Rozell about the train.
Afterward, Walsh put Rozell in contact with Gross, who lived in California.
Gross provided photos and narratives of the liberation for Rozell to post on the project Web site.
Four years later, Rozell received an e-mail from Lexie Keston, a Holocaust survivor who was on the same train. She was 6 at the time.
The Web site, located at www.hfcsd.org/ww2, also led Tomkiewicz, Spiegel and Lantos to Rozell, and ultimately spawned Friday’s reunion.
Lantos, an emeritus professor of neuropathology at the University of London, traveled from England to attend Friday’s event, while Spiegel, an author and lecturer, came from New Jersey.
"It’s really a humbling experience," Rozell said after the morning program. "To be able to share it with the school and the students — for me, that’s where the gratification is."
The two-part reunion included speeches from the three survivors. Spiegel and Lantos each spoke about the books they wrote on their Holocaust experiences.
Dr. Gross, an emeritus professor of English who lives in San Diego, was unable to attend the reunion because of health reasons. He did, though, provide a letter that was read to the gathering by English teacher Rene Roberge. The reunion was recorded, and a copy of the recording will be sent to Gross.
Ms. Keston, who lives in Sydney, Australia, also was unable to attend, but she also wrote a letter that was read aloud by history teacher Mrs. Tara Sano at the gathering.
"I found the experience so raw and emotional that I screamed and burst into tears," she wrote of her reaction on finding the liberation photos on Rozell’s Web site.
The morning program included the showing of "A Train Near Magdeburg," a DVD by seniors Troy Belden and Eric Roman, that included the photos and narratives by the liberators of the train scene.
The dozen photos showed families leaving the train and some children smiling at the camera despite being weakened from starvation. The project really had an impact on the students who worked in it. "Meeting these people that came from the worst of the worst, and they just have the most positive attitude about it," said Hudson Falls senior Troy Belden.
Later on, Lantos and Spiegel sold copies of their books outside the auditorium. Hudson Falls senior Adam Armstrong, who bought a book, was surprised his school could play a role in Holocaust history.
"I still can’t believe that our school — that not a lot of people will know about because we are a small town — can do this much for history itself, that we can be history in the making," Armstrong said. Those involved in the event said the chance meeting has changed them as well.
"Sixty-two years ago, as those events happened, I never in my wildest imagination thought I would ever meet anyone from that train again," said Walsh.
Though the photos and narratives have been on the Web for four years, more people have been viewing them recently, Rozell said. He expects more soldiers and survivors will come forward with their own stories of the Magdeburg train as the reunion gains publicity, he said.
Tomkiewicz said he is trying to convince the education department at his school to invite Rozell for a presentation.
"When he started the project, he had no idea where it was going to lead to," Tomkiewicz said of Rozell. "It is an excellent manifestation of what education can do."

Thanks to Omar Aquije and the Glens Falls Post-Star for permission to use this story, as well as Albany, NY's Capital News 9's Kaitlyn Ross for filling in some detail.
The 800 students of HFHS set the standards of respectfulness and decorum at this important occasion.-MR 12-3-07

Greetings to the Reunion-statement by Lexie Keston, Child Survivor

2008-01-19T03:55:00.000-08:00

Dear Matt, George, Carrol, Teachers, Students and my fellow Survivors,

I will never forget the day when I opened the Website of the Hudson Falls High School 'WW2 Living History Project', and before my unbelieving eyes I was looking back to 1945 - more accurately to April 13th 1945 - the day of my Liberation by the 9th US Army.

The 11 photographs before me were taken when I was 6 1/2 years old (younger than either of my two little granddaughters). The Train had stopped at the siding of the small station Farsleben, some 16 km from Magdeburg. I had been on this train with my parents and some 2,500 people all from the Camp Bergen Belsen. I had been incarcerated there from July 15th 1943 till April 7th 1945. In the camp we had the unusual classification of 'For Exchange to Palestine', most were classified as 'Jew'. I think that this is the only reason that we were kept together and survived as a family for nearly two years in the most horrific of circumstances.

So now some 61 years on in January 2006, in front of my computer at my home in Sydney, Australia, I was confronted with photographs of the day of my Liberation. I found this experience so raw and emotional that I screamed and then burst into tears. I studied the photographs looking and searching for myself. I thought that I could be one of the little girls, sitting in the group photo - I dismissed this for I assumed my mother would be somewhere nearby, but I did not see her.

I looked at the bleak, miserable geography of the site, the horrible train carriages, the skeletal human shapes - fortunately my memory is still a blank. I do not remember being in the train for 6 days, I do not remember being hungry or thirsty. All I remember is being out of the train, standing on the ground and watching the German guards fleeing and dropping their guns. I picked up one of these guns and before I could do anything - it was snatched from my hands. That is my only memory of that day. However, the events of the day are documented visually and that is incredible to believe. For no written words could describe so vividly the happenings of that day as do these 11 photographs. It is a historical miracle that Major Benjamin and Tank Commander George Gross had their small Kodak camera - and that on that day there was film left to use and record the day.

With today's incredible technology anyone on our planet can see this photographic evidence of my Liberation. It is the foresight of that other man of goodwill - your History Teacher Matt Rozell that these photographs were posted on Hudson Falls High School Internet Website - for all to access.

Following a series of events, I have developed a warm email relationship with Professor George Gross, with Judge Carrol Walsh and Carrol's daughter Elizabeth Connolly. It is a great joy for me to hear about their lives today and of their family happenings. The fact that this connection was made some 61 years after the event is very difficult to believe possible. But it is so.

The friendship I have developed with these two wonderful men has helped me to bring some sort of closure to that unfortunate time in my childhood. The interest they, as well as Matt, have shown in wanting to know my story has given me the encouragement I needed to write about some of my experiences. I did do so, and my story will be published in an Anthology of some twenty stories of the members of my Child Survivors group here in Sydney.

Thank you Matt Rozell, for teaching your students about tolerance and the evils of prejudice. I applaud and compliment you on your good work. You have touched the lives of your students and a growing number of Survivors. You have also I think affected the lives of the two Liberators - George and Carrol.

Your history course on this Train at Magdeburg is teaching your students the evil that was perpetrated by the Nazis during the Holocaust, against innocent people whose only sin was that they were Jews.

I hope one of the messages that your course has instilled in to the psyche of your students is that 'Evil Happens When Good Men Do Nothing.'

I wish you all great success in your future endeavours.

Lexie Keston

Sydney, Australia

September 2007

Greetings to the Reunion-statement by Dr. Gross, Liberator

2008-01-19T03:52:00.000-08:00

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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 have met and enjoyed the company of Dr. Peter Lantos and Drs. Micha and Louise Tomkiewicz, and I carry on a rewarding conversation with Lexie Keston, Fred Spiegel, and Micha Tomkiewicz’s niece Elisabeth in France by E-mail. 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. I am very sorry that I am unable to meet with you today.

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.

My grateful greetings and thanks, too, to the administration of Hudson Falls High School, who have allowed Mr. Rozell the latitude to teach special classes and maintain the web site that has been so important to the survivors gathered here and to the message they bring to the world. 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

Steal A Pencil For Me

2008-01-15T18:31:00.000-08:00

The amazing journey continues.

Steal A Pencil For Me is the title of a film recently released at Netflix. Shortly after the reunion Dr. Gross received the following email:

Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 10:53 AM
To: gcgross@mail.sdsu.edu
Cc: Rozell Matt
Subject: Train Magdeburg 1945

Dear Prof. Gross, My name is Joke Weiss-Soep. I was born in Amsterdam, Holland. We, my parents, older sister and I had been sent to Bergen Belsen from Westerbork where my father died in February 1945. At the time I was 10 years old and was together with my mother and older sister on the train you liberated, . I seem to remember that, coming back from searching for some food together with a cousin, we saw "somebody" with a gun running down a low hill and being told that this was an American soldier and that we were free!!!!! My memories are very vague, probably as a result of not talking about the camps for about 50 years until I realized, like many other people, that it was time to tell my children and grandchildren as much as I could remember. Last week I read the article in the Jerusalem Post, (in Israel) about you and Judge Walsh liberating "my train" on 13. April 1945. There are no words to say "thank you" that will express my feelings while reading about your experiences.. I sent the article together with links from the internet to my cousins Jack Polak and Ina Polak-Soep in New York and I am sure they will contact you directly. Thank you!!!!!!! Joke Weiss-Soep

I got a call from Ina about a film that was about to be released concerning her and her (future) husband's Holocaust survivor story. It is a love story set in Bergen Belsen. Later, Jack was on the train liberated by the Russians and Ina was on the train liberated by the Americans.

Anyway, it is a beautiful story set against the tragic background of Belsen, although it has a happy ending... 60+ years of marriage. Stills and trailers for the film can be seen here. The production, storyline and cinematography is all top notch. The synopsis from the website:

"STEAL A PENCIL FOR ME is a compelling documentary feature film by Academy Award® nominee Michèle Ohayon about the power of love and the ability of humankind to rise above unimaginable suffering.

1943: Holland is under total Nazi occupation. In Amsterdam, Jack, an unassuming accountant, first meets Ina at a birthday party – a 20-year-old beauty from a wealthy diamond manufacturing family who instantly steals his heart. But Jack’s pursuit of love will be complicated; he is poor and married to Manja, a flirtatious and mercurial spouse.

When the Jews are being deported, the husband, the wife and the lover find themselves at the same concentration camp; actually living in the same barracks. When Jack's wife objects to the relationship in spite of their unhappy marriage, Jack and Ina resort to writing secret love letters, which sustain them throughout the horrible circumstances of the war.

Jack: “I’m a very special Holocaust survivor. I was in the camps with my wife and my girlfriend; and believe me, it wasn’t easy.”

Ariela-the American Angels

2008-01-14T19:40:00.000-08:00

From: Avital Pearlston
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2008 5:00 PM
To: Rozell Matt
Subject: A Train Near Magdeburg

Hi Mr. Rozell,

First, on behalf of my mother Ariela Rojek, I would like to wish you and your family a very Happy and Healthy New Year....

Several weeks ago my mother received a copy of your DVD and we all sat down to watch it with her. I must tell you we had chills up and down our spines. It is mind boggling to even imagine what transpires in our survivors' and liberators' minds when such a reunion takes place.

My mother was inspired to put her memories down on paper regarding the liberation and I have attached it in this e-mail. She has also asked me to include a couple of pictures that she took when she went back to visit the site a few years ago. Please add her story to the few that you already have and if you would like to share with the rest of the group you may go ahead.

Please continue to stay in touch and send us any other news that you may have in the future.

Thanks again for the great work that you have done.

Sincerely,

Avital Pearlston, on behalf of Ariela Rojek

Dear Mr. Rozell,
After speaking with you in October and watching the reunion DVD, I decided to write down some of my memories and send them to you. I hope that they will contribute to the research that you have done.
I was born in Poland, where I spent time in the ghetto and a prison. I then spent two years in Bergen-Belsen.
When told to prepare ourselves for the departure in the train I was already very weak and sick. Two weeks prior I had very high fever. I was with my aunt, my father’s sister, as by then I had lost my entire family.
The Germans let us know that all those who could not walk would have to stay behind. My aunt wanted to stay because she knew that I was already very weak; however, I insisted on going. I said to my aunt, “You know that they kill the weak and the sick. We will go with the healthy people.” Although I was only 11½ years old, my aunt listened to me. I probably had a very strong will to live.
Although this might not be relevant, I would like to tell it anyway:
Before we left, they gave each of us a raw potato, and somehow we managed to bake them over wood. My aunt then said to me, “You know that now is the Passover holiday” – we barely remembered what day of the week it was, let alone the date. “On Passover, according to the story, our forefather Moses took us out of Egypt. Maybe G-d is bringing us to freedom, and maybe we will live.”
We walked a few kilometres to the train, and out of weakness we dropped most of the things that we still had with us. We reached the first car in the train, and there were a few women who saved us a spot. The train slowly moved but stopped every few kilometres because the tracks were destroyed from the bombings.
In one of the stations we saw a cargo train carrying beets. A good friend of mine convinced me to go steal the beets, and with my last strength I went. (I am actually still in touch with her today. Her and her brother are in the same picture as me, and she is the one who confirmed that I am the girl sitting on my knees on the right side of the picture). The beets tasted like the Garden of Eden, and my aunt said they tasted like melon. Of course, I didn’t remember how melon tasted.
The train continued to some place and stopped – on one side there was a forest and on the other side the Elba River. I remember the place exactly as it looks in Dr. Gross’s photograph.
After awhile, some Germans rode by on bicycles, and when they heard it was a train full of Jews they ordered the German guards to kill us. In the meantime, American planes flew low above us and apparently took pictures that showed people and children. The German guards that were still there to watch over us started to shoot with machine guns at the planes. Our people asked them to stop shooting, but they refused. We got off the train and hid under the wheels.
I would now like to add something personal. My aunt sat with me under the wheels and took out a little notebook that contained the names and addresses of our relatives in America. She told me to learn all of this by heart because you never know who the bullet will hit – and when the war would end I should contact these relatives and ask them to take me in. I listened to her and learned everything by heart. Until today, I remember some of these names and addresses.
As you know, the Germans didn’t get a chance to kill us, and you, the American angels, came on time. The children started to run to the small village to ask for food, and again my good friend dragged me with her and we managed to get some milk and bread.
After a day or two, the American army asked us to get on trucks and go to a village called Hillersleben. We were all afraid because we had learned from the past that every transport means death. In the end, they found a Jewish American soldier who announced in Yiddish over the loudspeaker that we had nothing to be afraid of and that we would be moving to nice and clean houses. And this is how the chapter of the train ended. But for me, on a personal note, my story continued...
I want to point out that in 1995 I went with my husband to Bergen-Belsen for the 50th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. From there we went to Hillersleben. The place looked very different from what I remembered, probably as a result of the Russian influence for 50 years. We managed to find a Jewish monument in the yard of a church. On it was written: In memory of 138 Jewish survivors of Bergen-Belsen.

With regards,

Ariela Rojek
Toronto, Ontario
Canada

CBS Evening News-"They don't owe us. We owe them."

2007-12-11T01:24:00.000-08:00

The CBS Evening News spent time and money producing a story on this reunion, focusing on Carrol Walsh and survivor Fred Spiegel. I had contacted them back in March and again this summer, and they began work on it in August, so we pretty much committed to CBS getting an exclusive on this story, having the promise and assurances that it would definitely run. Once Veteran's Day came and went, however, it was clear that the story had fallen by the wayside... It's a shame because Tracy Smith did a decent story, though Dr. Gross and the importance of the posting of the photographs on the school website was not covered.

See for yourself by clicking here.

A Message from Israel

2007-11-30T13:33:00.000-08:00

I went to school today and had a special email waiting for me in my inbox, accompanied by this photograph, taken a few weeks ago.

From: Micha Ben David
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 11:14 PM
Subject: Train near Magdeburg

Dear Mr. Rozell,
I found your website after visiting with my father on Bergen Belsen, Hilersleben and Farsleben.
It was by searching the name of the photographer [George C. Gross] of the photos that I saw on the museum in Bergen Belsen.
My father was on that train! He was 12 years old with his mother who died and was buried in Hilersleben.

Since he was young and very ill, he doesn't remember the whole event. He does remember that American soldiers released the train.
I'm looking for more details on that transport or any other information about this story.
Please, if you have any information, let me know.

Attached, you can find a photo of the gravestone of my grandmother on the field near the old hospital in Hillersleben and few more photos from our tour. I have more, if you interested.

Best Regards
Micha
Israel

I think Micha and his dad represent the 17th survivor to find the day of his/her liberation on our website.

Observation:
When you find stuff like this waiting for you when you arrive at work, it sets the tone for the entire day and beyond. All of the petty stuff fades away pretty quickly. You soon realize that there is no need to react negatively when kids don't act as you would like them to- THAT's the stuff that DOESN'T matter.

I spent more quality time with my more difficult kids today than I usually do-and that was enriching for all of us. Don't get me wrong, they sometimes (frequently, actually) need a "kick in the butt", and they know it. But today was a day just to be with them and to listen to them.

It was this picture. The photograph is heart wrenching, the grief of a 12 year old boy who still mourns deeply for his mother, who passed away either shortly before or just after her liberation.

Soon, I'll be putting Micha and his dad in touch with the liberators, George and Carrol, as well as the rest of the survivors. And I pose the silent question to myself once more-how did I, a high school teacher from a little town, get to witness the unfolding of the power of love that has so transcended time and space?

I don't really get it, but I am so grateful for it. In the words of one survivor, there are no coincidences.

The Holocaust Survivor and the US Army Ranger...

2007-11-29T12:55:00.000-08:00

...are one in the same! Had a great lesson 4th block today.

My high school seniors and I were treated to a wonderful interview with Mr. Steve Barry, 83, of Florida, who graphically described his liberation from that train nearly 63 years ago. He said "The South Florida Sun-Sentinel published an article titled "Vet unites with 3 death train survivors" Needless to say I was in a state of shock, and to some degree I still am, to find out after all the years, that the event burned in to my soul for all eternity, is shared with a lot of other people." He went on to relate to my students and I the account of his ordeal and liberation, his emigration to the United States and his experience in becoming the "happiest Korean War draftee", who ironically served his adopted country as a US Army Ranger in Germany.

His written account of his meeting with his liberator Carrol Walsh follows:

SOMETIMES THE FACTS OF REALITY DWARF THE WILDEST FICTION.

The story continues…Steve, a Hungarian Jew, lives in Florida is one of the 13 latest survivors to see the Associated Press article on our reunion and contact us. He was 21 at time of liberation and remembers a mobile SS death squad setting up their guns near the train. The people refused to get out of the boxcars as everyone knew the Americans were nearby…

My odds to meet, after 62 years, one of the brave soldiers who came across “ That Train Near Magdeburg” on April 13, 1945 was less then nil. I beat those odds and managed to survive and preserve my body and sanity.

Carrol Walsh fought his way from Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge and to the Elbe River earning five well-deserved battle stars. For him, coming upon that train and a mass of emaciated, skeletal men, women and children was only one of many sad episodes of the war. Little did he realize it then that to me and countless other survivors he became an ICON rekindling our faith in human kindness. He became our LIBERATOR and will always remain that.

As it was prearranged on November 3, 2007, after picking up my daughter Barbara at the Tampa airport, (she flew in from Baltimore just for the occasion, traveling with my daughter Jamie and son-in-law Jerry, drove to the home of the Walsh’s in New Port Richey, FL. Carrol and his wife Dorothy stood at the driveway waiting for us.

I walked over to Carrol, shook his hand and we embraced, then I proceeded to kiss Dorothy. My entire family followed my example. Later after our meeting came to a conclusion, Carrol and I both felt like two old friends meeting after many years.

Inside, the table was set for coffee and tea and assorted snacks. We decided that it was more important first to engage in conversation, reminiscing about the discovery of the train and the aftermath. It was sort of a Q & E. Then we talked about our lives after the war. We learned that Carrol became a State Supreme Court Justice. We exchange some pictures and observed a wonderful photo of the Walsh’s large, attractive family.

During conversation it was discovered that Carrol’s grandson, Sean, attends G. W. University just as my granddaughter Amanda does.

Meeting Carrol and Dorothy Walsh is one of my most treasured experiences. They are, without a doubt, the sweetest, warmest and kindest people I have met. Meeting Carrol was dream come through and I especially enjoyed his boundless sense of humor.

Dear friends, Carrol and Dorothy, you restored some of my faith in humanity and I never, ever will forget the privilege to know you and call you my friends.

Steve

Boca Raton, FL 11/04/2007

P. S. Yes, there are Angels but they have no wings; we call them FRIENDS.

Just let the stories unfold...

2007-11-28T20:53:00.000-08:00

This evening my wife and I spent an hour with filmmaker Ken Burns in the company of 300 other individuals, most seemingly well educated and literate. (I wonder how many other history teachers were in the audience.) We sat in the front row as he read from the introduction to his book, but the true passion came forth in the question and answer period that followed. Then he burned with the intensity that comes from the conviction that you know you are right and that your work has amounted to something because IT MATTERS.

For me, and clearly for him, it has never been about "my country, right or wrong" or even the idea of a "Greatest Generation"... during the Second World War, some very courageous people followed their convictions not to kill and instead became social pariahs and /or incarcerated individuals. (Read John H. Abbott's "Reflections on Machismo" interview in Studs Terkel's The Good War.) For me, teaching history is about teaching the kids what happened by letting the stories unfold, to engage or to repel. We learn that history is never black and white because life is not, and has never been.

What motivated and pushed him to work on this film on the Second World War boiled down to two things- the fact that this generation is fading very quickly, but more importantly that our nation's collective memory of what happened sixty-odd years ago seems to be dying faster than those men and women are. One the one hand we feel unabashed gratitude and on the other, sheer outrage. I've been outraged for a long time, but I'd like to think that in sharing some of this outrage with my kids they can pick up on its importance... Burns and I have been on the same page for a long time- I've been conducting these oral histories for almost my entire career in the classroom.

At the book signing I was a bit disappointed because it became immediately clear that he had to get through this ritual as quickly as possible to satisfy the line of people who had paid their 55 dollars for their 30 seconds with him. Laura and I were nearly the first persons in line and it was a little nuts, he wasn't too relaxed, but I can't blame him. (Getting 20,000 hits on our ww2 website on a single weekend and the subsequent tidal wave of emails hearing about dads, uncles, granddads who fought in the war was an honor, but a bit overwhelming- I can imagine what he is going through...) Still, in my Ralphy "Christmas Story" fantasy-world I got to tell him what we have been doing at our school, making sure that none of our students graduates as ignorant as the average American is about his own history. I got to tell him that he was one of my heroes and he got to tell me that no, we were his heroes...

But that's not really important. I did manage to get my books signed, one for my student Sara, and slip him the DVD of the Holocaust Survivor-Liberator Reunion that my class brought about. While he hardly looked at it before tucking it under the table, if he's true to his passion, and he obviously is, he will be curious enough to watch at least part of it. He'll see that there's at least one school whose students KNOW the importance of history. Thanks, Ken, for a great evening.

Ken Burns on the state of history education.

Gina- "I trust her dreams were realized."

2007-09-24T11:41:00.000-07:00

From the website:
Sgt. George Gross (relayed to Matthew Rozell, March, 2002):

I spent part of the afternoon (13 April 1945) listening to the story of Gina Rappaport, who had served so well as interpreter. She was in the Warsaw ghetto for several years as the Nazis gradually emptied the ghetto to fill the death camps, until her turn finally came. She was taken to Bergen-Belsen, where the horrible conditions she described matched those official accounts I later heard. She and some 2500 others, Jews from all over Europe, Finnish prisoners of war, and others who had earned the enmity of Nazidom, were forced onto the train and taken on a back-and-forth journey across Germany, as their torturers tried to get them to a camp where they could be eliminated before Russians on one side or Americans on the other caught up with them. Since the prisoners had little food, many died on the purposeless journey, and they had felt no cause for hope when they were shunted into this little unimportant valley siding. Gina told her story well, but I have never been able to write it. I received a letter from her months later, when I was home in San Diego. I answered it but did not hear from her again. Her brief letter came from Paris, and she had great hopes for the future. I trust her dreams were realized.

We were relieved the next morning, started up the tank, waved good-bye to our new friends, and followed a guiding jeep down the road to rejoin our battalion. I looked back and saw a lonely Gina Rappaport standing in front of a line of people waving us good fortune. On an impulse I cannot explain, I stopped the tank, ran back, hugged Gina, and kissed her on the forehead in a gesture I intended as one asking forgiveness for man's terrible cruelty and wishing her and all the people a healthy and happy future. I pray they have had it.

Today I had every intention to read aloud these paragraphs from Dr. Gross' testimony to my 4th block tenth graders . I made it as far as the last two sentences, and had to stop, go back to my desk, and compose myself for a moment...when I passed around these two photographs and Eran's email, the kids understood...of course I reminded them that I was still a "tough guy".

From my inbox, a week after the reunion...

From: לייטרסדורף ערן - Leitersdorf Eran
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 6:35 AM
To: Rozell Matt
Cc: Giora Leitersdorf
Subject: Contact information

Dear Madam /Sir,

I am referring to your amazing World War II project (http://www.hfcsd.org/ww2/).

Mr. George Gross whose testimony is found in your site mentions the story of Gina Rappaport (and includes her photo) who happens to be my mother (!).

She survived the Holocaust and emigrated to Israel where she lives until today. In 1947 she married to my father Andrew Leitersdorf and gave birth to two children, my brother Giora and myself.

Could you please provide me with contact information of Mr. Gross? I would like to contact him as soon as possible.

Many thanks for your help!

Sincerely yours,
Eran

Eran Leitersdorf, MD
Jerusalem, Israel.

The follow up:

Dear Matthew,

Thanks for your letter and for this fascinating project which is highly important for my entire family!
I am enclosing a photograph taken yesterday showing my mother reading for the first time Dr. Gross's article and watching her own photo in front of the tank.

With kind regards,

Eran

The Blessed 743rd

2007-09-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

From: Ern Kan
Sent: Sat 9/15/2007 8:09 PM
To: Rozell Matt
Subject: A train near Magdeburg

Dear Mr. Rozell:
My name is Ernest Kan .
I was tremendously pleased and excited to find your above titled history
project.
I happened to be one of the Jewish concentration camp survivors who was
liberated by the blessed 743.U.S.Tank Battalion and 30.U.S.infantry
division in Magdeburg on that fateful day April 13. 1945.
In 2005 I was invited with Frank Towers,a former lieutenant of the 30.
by the Lord Mayor of the city of Magdeburg as guests of honor to
participate in the celebration of 60 years of the liberation of the city
by American troops and the 1200 year birthday of Magdeburg.
We were put up in the best hotel,THE MARITIME, and gave many speeches
and interviews with TV and newspaper coverage culminating in the signing
of the book of honor of the city,with the city fathers present and
cameras popping. In all it was a most successful trip telling our stories to many students
and the citizens of Magdeburg. Most everything was recorded on DVDs and videos.

I was liberated at the POLTE ammunition factory in Magdeburg where I was
a slave worker after having been brought there by freight train from
concentration camp STUTTHOF near Danzig in the fall of 1944.
My Odyssey began in Riga,Latvia where the Germans occupied our apartment on the first of July 1941.Shortly thereafter we were put into the Riga Ghetto.My mother was murdered with 27000 other Jews in the forest of Rumbula(see website Rumbula forest) November 30. and Dec 9. 1941.during the partial liquidation of the ghetto.The Ghetto was finally liquidated
in 1943 ,my dad was shipped to Auschwitz where he perished and I, who was 20 at the time was put into the concentration camp KAISERWALD near Riga.
With the approach of the Soviet army in 1944, Kaiserwald was evacuated by
ship and we were shipped to Stutthof concentration camp,after about a month to Polte in Magdeburg where I WAS LIBERATED.
You know the rest.

My personal story was also taped in Berlin Germany where I was kicked
out of my High school on Nov.11.1938 because I was Jewish.
I was invited by my former school in June 2003 where I gave the
commencement exercise address to the graduating class and received an
honorary diploma retroactively. My story is being shown in the Berlin school district as part of the Holocaust education program.

Again allow me to congratulate you and your students on your outstanding
educational project and If I can contribute any personal details ,do not
hesitate to contact me.
Best regards

Ernest Kan

More Memories

2007-09-15T15:06:00.000-07:00

Sent: Sat 9/15/2007 3:06 PM
To: Rozell Matt
Subject: More Memories

I saw the story about your research on the CNN website and thought I'd add a part of my family's immediate history.

My mother is from Linz, Austria. WhenHitler invaded that country early in the war she actually watched him make a speech in the town square. How many people can say they actually saw and heard Hitler? She was required to serve so many months working between the country and the city.

My father was from Warsaw, Poland. He engaged in underground resistance activities, was caught, and sent to Mauthausen where he spent most of the war. There's a website that has an account of the officer who liberated Mauthausen and what they saw there - I dont' remember his name, but if you put "Mauthausen" in Google it'll come up.

My father was not Jewish. I think one of the things people don't realize that the camps did not specifically target only Jews. There were many, many other people that became victims of the Nazis.

Every so often the commandant of the camp would inspect the prisoners to determined which ones were too ill to keep working and would send those for extermination. My father, who had pleurisy, had made friends with the Polish go-between of the prisoners and the commandant. The commandant stood before my father and asked the liaison what was wrong with him. The liason minimized my father's condition by saying it was nothing that a little rest wouldn't cure. The commandant stood before my father, hitting his tall boots with his crop, deciding what to do with him - the longest seconds in my father's life, and of course a turning point for my entire family history.

When Mauthausen was liberated the prisoners swarmed into Linz (where my mother met my father). Some of the prisoners were so starved and in such bad shape that they ate too much and died. My mother said she was walking somewhere (she was sixteen at the time) and a bloody man lying on the ground begged her for help. She had no way of knowing what side he was on or who he was, and so she kept going. I often wonder how things would have changed for him had she stopped and sought help.

My father did and didn't survive the camp. He came through physically, but his mind was wrecked. He became an alcoholic and was terribly abusive - only so far can one excuse his behavior because of the camp - after all, many survivors made good on their lives following the camp.

My mother still lives in Colorado.

I hope you get something out of this incredible story; as a 1st generation American the war affected my life very deeply.

Linda Waters
Woodville, TX

On Angels-"PLEASE TELL THEM THAT I LOVE THEM"

2007-09-15T14:59:00.000-07:00

From: Agi & Ron Baker
Sent: Sat 9/15/2007 2:59 PM
Subject: THE TRAIN

DEAR MR. ROZELL--I READ TODAY WITH GREAT INTEREST THE AP ARTICLE ABOUT THE TRAIN AND YOUR PROJECT...

MY MOTHER, SISTER AND I WERE ON THAT TRAIN . I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE WITH YOU SOME OF MY MEMORIES.

THE FIRST SIGHT I HAD OF THE AMERICANS FROM INSIDE THE TRAIN WAS OF AN EMPTY VEHICLE SUCH AS WE HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE---IT HAD A GREAT WHITE STAR ON IT, AND SOMEONE-FAMILIAR WITH THAT STAR SAID:" THE AMERICANS ARE HERE" .

NOW I KNOW THAT IT WAS A JEEP---AND IT MUST HAVE BEEN ON A RECONNAISSANCE MISSION, AND IT WAS EMPTY MAYBE, BECAUSE THE SOLDIERS TOOK COVER, SEEING THE TRAIN. I WILL FOREVER SEE THE WHITE STAR AND THAT AMAZING JEEP IN MY HEART---

SOON, THE SOLDIERS CAME AND TOLD US SADLY THAT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT HAD DIED THE DAY BEFORE ON APR 12.. THEY TOLD US, THAT IT WAS FRIDAY, APR 13, 1945---WE DID NOT KNOW THE MONTHS AND THE DAYS ANYMORE, LOST COUNT OF TIME IN BERGEN BELSEN.LONG BEFORE.

THE SOLDIERS CAME, AND WERE GENTLE AND GAVE US FOOD. FOR 2 DAYS WE SLEPT ON THE HILLSIDE---AND THEN WE WERE BILLETED INTO ABANDONED GERMAN HOMES IN A TOWN CALLED HILLERSLEBEN JUST OUTSIDE OF MAGDEBURG.

D.D.T. HAS A VERY BAD REPUTATION TODAY---- BUT I WILL FOREVER THINK OF THE D.D.T WITH A GREAT DEAL OF AFFECTION. WE WERE LINED UP, SPRAYED WITH DDT THAT KILLED THE MILLIONS OF LICE THAT INFESTED US. THE AMERICANS BURNED OUR RAGS AND GOD KNOWS FROM WHERE GAVE US CLEAN CLOTHES.

AS I WAS A CHILD I FANTASIZED THAT THE SOLDIERS WERE ANGELS, WITH THEIR WINGS HIDDEN UNDER THEIR UNIFORM SHIRTS.

TODAY I KNOW THAT THIS WAS NO FANTASY. IN THAT PLACE, AND AT THAT TIME THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS WERE ANGELS INDEED.

I WAS 10, MY SISTER WAS 8. WE WERE HUNGARIAN JEWS.I, TOO HAVE MANY QUESTIONS FOR YOU, AND WILL CALL YOU SOON...

-I JUST CAN NOT BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING ---THE AP ARTICLE ---YOUR PROJECT-----62 YEARS LATER---

WILL YOU BE SO KIND TO FORWARD MY "TRAIN" LETTER TO MR WALSH AND MR GROSS. PLEASE TELL THEM THAT I LOVE THEM AND THAT IS NOT AN OVERSTATEMENT---

SO MUCH THANKS TO YOU,DARLING MATT

SINCERELY YOURS WITH MANY THANKS FOR YOUR PROJECT

AGNES FLEISCHER-BAKER

MONROE CT 06468

She is a survivor. He was a soldier...

2007-09-14T21:16:00.000-07:00

Sent: Fri 9/14/2007 9:16 PM
To: Rozell Matt
Subject: WWII Living History project

Dear Mr. Rozell:

Quite serendipitously (to be explained at another time), my brother found out about and then forwarded me, to view your project's website.

My mother Jean Lazinger (nee' Gusia Weinstock) was on that train near Magdeburg (from Bergen Belsen) and was liberated just as Lexie Keston describes. She was brought to Hilerslaben and then went on to live in Brussels for 3 years before emigrating to the United States in 1948. She survived along with her parents and her only brother. At the time of her liberation, my mother was 15. She is now 77. I have been hearing this story my entire life.

Additionally, you will be surprised to know that my father (now 82)was in the American 1st Army 30th Infantry Division. At the time, I believe that he had already been wounded and was hospitalized in either Germany or England...but he can tell you more. Upon a post war trip home from visiting cousins in France, he met my Uncle on a Cunard ship...

My parents met in Brooklyn and married in June 1950.

They have many, many stories to tell...
My parents-Jean and Sol Lazinger
Many thanks for your fantastic work and I hope to hear from you soon.

Best Regards,
Lisette Lazinger Tarragano