Henry Birnbrey (Chapter 12) was one of a few who arrived in the United States as a German Jewish refugee on March 31, 1938, seven months before Kristallnacht. He was given special permission from FDR to join the Army—he was previously classified ‘enemy alien’ due to his German birth—and came upon the train as an American GI. Henry is active in speaking about his experiences in the Atlanta, Georgia, area, where he resides. He contacted the author in 2012 and later met Frank Towers.[68]
Charles M. Kincaid (Chapter 14) was a liaison officer with the 30th Division Artillery. He was honored with an Air Medal in the battle of Mortain and a Bronze Medal in the battle of Saint-Lô. In the battle of Mortain he won his Air Medal by calling in artillery adjustments while flying in a Piper L-4 over four panzer divisions on August 9, 1944. After the war, he became a chemist in Ohio. He passed away in 2010 at the age of 92.[69]
William Gast (Chapter 17) landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day ten minutes before H-hour, driving a tank in Company A of the 743rd Tank Battalion. He was also a recipient of the Silver Star. Bill attended his first reunion in March 2008, where he met survivors; later he attended our Sept. 2009 reunion at the high school, where he addressed students and his new survivor friends. He lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Buster Marion Simmonds (Chapter 17) was a combat medic in the 30th Infantry Division, and served as the chaplain for their reunions. Buster attended the 2009 and 2011 reunions at our high school, and became passionate about educating schoolchildren about the Holocaust. He died in 2013.
Walter Gantz (Chapter 18) worked at an American multinational telecommunications equipment company. He and his wife raised their family in Scranton, PA, where he is a committed volunteer for the local chapter of the American Red Cross.[70]
Robert Schatz (Chapter 18) lives in Long Island and was for years the driver for U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato. After the war, he was also a colonel in the New York State National Guard.[71]
Luca Furnari (Chapter 18) lives in the Bronx, New York City, where he ran a laundry/dry cleaning route. He was married in 1943, and he and his wife raised their family until her death 60 years later. He is still looking for the little girl ‘Irene.’[72]
Grier Taylor (Chapter 18) lives near Columbia, South Carolina. Like many of the soldiers, he was contacted by survivors and their families after this project brought his contributions to light.[73]
Sol Lazinger (Chapter 10) was the son of Polish Jewish immigrants. He was decorated with two Purple Hearts and the Silver Star. He was evacuated after being wounded in Belgium. He married Jean Weinstock Lazinger (Chapter 1) in 1950. Until they learned of the author’s first reunion in 2007 through the news media, neither realized that it was Sol’s division which had liberated Jean’s train. Sol passed away in 2012 at the age of 87; Jean lives in Philadelphia.[74]
Survivors featured in this book
who were on the ‘Train Near Magdeburg’
Ervin Abadi was a survivor from Hungary who is the first name to appear on the train manifest list. During his convalescence at the hospital at Hillersleben, he created dozens of works of Holocaust art. In a book of his paintings published in 1946, he began by stating, ‘Let these drawings serve as proof of my everlasting gratitude towards those to whom I owe my life… to the soldiers of the United States Army, particularly to our immediate liberators, those soldiers … [who] gave us bread, milk, chocolate, and cigarettes…’ He died in 1979.[75]
Paul Arato (Chapter 21) survived the Holocaust with his mother and brother Oscar. He was an industrial designer. He lived in Toronto with his family, and through a business meeting struck up a conversation with Leslie Meisels, and they both discovered they had been on the train. He got to address his liberators for the first time in 2009 in Charleston, SC, and came to the 2009 reunion at our high school. He passed away in 2013.
Sara Atzmon (Chapter 1) is a painter and artist who lives in Israel with her family and extended relatives. She attended the 2009 school reunion, and travels all over the world to educate the public and show her work.[76]
Stephen B. Barry went on to become a US Army ranger, serving in the 28th Infantry Division and referring to himself as the ‘happiest Korean War draftee.’ He served, in all places, occupation duty in post-war Germany. He attended many reunions, including the 2009 school reunion. He passed away in Boca Raton, Florida, in 2012; he was 87.[77]
Irene Bleier Muskal immigrated to Cleveland, Ohio, and later settled in Israel. Although she never met her liberators, she was always appreciative and even wrote a thank you letter to the Cleveland newspaper, which was published in 1970. Her lengthy memoir, penned for her family, was a testament to her commitment to telling the story of the Holocaust. She passed away at age 70 in 1997.[78]
Kurt Bronner (Chapter 1) spent a lengthy amount of time recuperating in Sweden following the war, and later came to the United States. He is a retired graphic designer currently living near Los Angeles.[79]
Uri Orlev (Chapter 1) is a well-known children’s author living in Israel. Many of his themes deal with his experiences in the Holocaust; he received the international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1996 for his ‘lasting contribution to children's literature.’[80]
Aliza Vitis-Shomron came to Palestine immediately after the war, settling on a kibbutz to rebuild her life and working on her manuscript to remember her promise to her friends who died in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. She accompanied many youth groups to Poland, and is committed to remembering the Holocaust.[81]
‘Agi’ Fleischer Baker met her husband in Israel and came to the United States, where she raised her family. She became very close to her liberators and their families, especially in Florida. She found the author after the news of the very first reunion at our school in 2007.[82]
Ariela Rojek wound up in the Bergen–Belsen Displaced Persons camp with her aunt after the liberation. She moved to Israel, where she met her husband, and later immigrated to Toronto, Canada, where they raised their family and where she still resides today. Ariela also attended several reunions, including our reunions at the high school in 2009 and 2011. She is the author’s biggest fan on Facebook.[83]
Leslie Meisels returned to Hungary but eventually settled in Canada, where he and his brothers built a successful precision mold manufacturing plant. He retired in the late 1980s, and he and his wife Eva, a survivor of the Budapest Ghetto saved by Raoul Wallenberg, are very active in the Holocaust education community. Leslie is a sought-after speaker, and I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with him in Toronto in 2015. Leslie also attended several reunions, including our reunions at the high school in 2009 and 2011. His memoir was a valuable part of constructing the Holocaust as experienced in Hungary.[84]
Fred Spiegel was no stranger to Hudson Falls, attending all of the reunions at the school and several one-day visits with our students to talk about his book and his experiences in the Holocaust. Fred was the third survivor who contacted me. Immediately after the war, Fred and his sister Edith were reunited with their mother in England. Fred later immigrated to Israel, and then to Chile to be with his mother and sister, finally settling in New Jersey with his wife Yael, where he raised his family and lives today. Fred returned to visit the camp Westerbork in 2000.[85]
Dr. Peter Lantos was lucky to escape Hungary following the 1956 Revolution, and enjoyed a distinguished medical career in Great Britain, during which time he contributed to the understanding of diseases of the nervous system. He has become internationally known and was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences. He penned his memoir Parallel Lines after his retirement, from which some of his testimony is drawn. He continues to write from his home in London. Peter attended several reunions, including the very first gathering at Hudson Falls in 2007.[86]
Yaakov Barzilai (poem, intro to Book 3) is an esteemed Israeli poet. Born in Hungary in 1933, he also survived Bergen–Belsen to be liberated on the train. His work speaks of the losses of the Holocaust, but also the eventual triumph over inhumanity.[87]
Hilde Huppert (Introduction) was an amazing woman. Her memoir Hand in Hand with Tommy was one of the first survivor memoirs, written immediately after her arrival in Palestine in July 1945. She escorted her son Tommy and hundreds of orphans, including 96 from Bergen–Belsen, on the first ship to arrive legally. She passed away in 2002. [88]
Arie Selinger (Chapter 13) is regarded as one of the greatest volleyball coaches of all time. Born in Poland in 1937, Arie and his mother survived Bergen–Belsen and were liberated on the train. He and his mother came to Palestine immediately after the war. Arie discovered his athleticism and went on to excel in sports; he led the USA Women's Volleyball Team to the Silver Medal in the 1984 Olympics, the first medal won by an American team in Olympic volleyball competition.[89]
Lajos Reti (Chapter 13) was a Hungarian survivor who returned to Hungary after the war; his wife was also a survivor of the Budapest Ghetto. He wrote his unpublished memoir, from which this account was drawn; he died in 1992.[90]
Martin Spett (Chapter 13) settled in New York after the war and became a designer of women’s handbags. He also took up poetry and painting to convey his Holocaust experiences; some of his portfolio resides at Yad Vashem.[91]
Dr. George Somjen (Chapter 13) is Professor Emeritus of Physiology in Cell Biology at Duke University in North Carolina. He attended several reunions of the 30th Infantry Division with his family.[92]
Robert Spitz (Chapter 13) was also from Budapest, Hungary, and spent 13 months in Bergen–Belsen as a teen before liberation. After the war, he settled in the United States. He also joined the US Army after liberation, serving in the 30th Infantry Division.[93]
John Fransman (Chapter 13) is a founder of The Child Survivors Association of Great Britain. He was born in Amsterdam, three weeks before World War II began. After the liberation, his family moved to Great Britain, where he was active in Holocaust and human rights education and activities. He lives in Israel.[94]
Dr. Bruria Bodek-Falik (Chapter 13) settled in New York State and founded the non-profit High Falls Center for the Developmentally Disabled to assist individuals in life-learning and residential programs. She has received numerous honors for pioneering work and commitment to people with developmental disabilities.[95]
Catharina (Ina) Soep Polak (Chapter 13) married fellow Dutch survivor Jack Polak, who was liberated on the ‘Lost Transport’ in 1946. Years later their love story was memorialized in the book and an award-winning documentary, Steal a Pencil For Me. The author corresponded with Ina but unfortunately never met her; she passed on in 2014 at the age of 91.[96]
Lisette Lamon (Chapter 13) became a psychotherapist at White Plains Hospital outside of New York City, pioneering in the treatment of trauma back in the days when the field was in its infancy. She was the sister-in-law of Ina Polak. Her first husband, Ina’s brother, was killed in Mauthausen in 1941. She passed away in 1982.[97]
Gina Rappaport Leitersdorf (Chapter 13) immigrated to Palestine after the war. While in Bergen–Belsen, she was a teacher for children, including young Ariela Rojek and others. She married and began her family, and was the only survivor to be conclusively identified by name by George C. Gross in his photographs. The worldwide publicity after the September 2007 reunion at Hudson Falls brought her in contact again with George Gross. She passed away in 2012.
Lexie Friedman Keston (Chapter 15) tasted her first ice cream in Belgium after the war, and immigrated to Australia with her parents after the Holocaust, where she resides today with her family. Lexie was the first survivor to contact the author, back in 2006. Like many of the survivors, she enjoyed a meaningful relationship with her liberators, and the soldiers’ families.[98]
Dr. Micha Tomkiewicz (Chapter 15) is a professor of physics and chemistry and is director of the Environmental Studies Program and the Electrochemistry Institute at Brooklyn College in New York. ‘Welcome to the family!’ is the rejoinder from Micha every time a ‘new’ survivor or family member of someone who was on the train turns up. He was the second survivor to contact me, and the only survivor who has attended every single reunion ever held, on three continents, a promise he made to Frank Towers after the first reunions with him. He has also met with ‘train’ survivors in Australia.
Elisabeth Seaman (Chapter 17) is a conflict mediation specialist and author, and a partner in the mediation firm, Learn2Resolve. She came to the 2009 reunion, and others, and speaks about her experiences in the Holocaust, including to a German audience at the Bergen–Belsen Memorial. She lives in California.[99]
Lily Cohen (Chapter 19) came to Palestine in 1945 as an orphan with Hilde Huppert, and was adopted by a family on a kibbutz, where she had a happy childhood. She became a renowned stage dancer and choreography instructor in England, and returned to Tel Aviv where, as a master, she runs her own Tai Chi and Qigong Academy. Lily also is a trainer and master practitioner of NLP Time Line Therapy.[100]
****************************
DID YOU LIKE THIS BOOK? Please consider helping me keep this history alive by leaving a review at the book’s Amazon webpage (bit.ly/TNMreview). A review serves as 'social proof' and tends to help get the book into more hands. I really appreciate your feedback.
*
If you liked this book, you’ll love hearing more from the World War II generation in my other books. On the following pages you can see some samples; additionally I can let you know as soon as the new books are out, and offer you exclusive discounts on some material. Just sign up at bit.ly/RozellNewBook. No spam ever and I will never share your information.
*
Some of my readers will like to know that all of my books are directly available from the author, signed and personalized, in paperback. They are popular gifts for that ‘hard-to-buy-for’ guy or gal on your list, and I frequently run specials. Visit bit.ly/MRSignedBooks for details.
Thank you for reading!
I hope you found this book interesting and informative; I sure learned a lot researching and writing it. If you liked it, you may also like my ‘The Things Our Fathers Saw’ series. The latest release is Book One of War in the Air. 320 pages.
— “You flew with what I would call ‘controlled fear.’ You were scared stiff, but it was controlled. My ball turret gunner—he couldn’t take it anymore… I guess he was right. He’s dead now. But he had lost control of the fear. He never got out of that ball turret; he died in that ball turret.” —B-24 bombardier
* * *
— “I spent a lo of time in hospitals. I had a lot of trouble reconciling how my mother died [of a cerebral hemorrhage] from the telegram she opened, saying I was [shot down and] ‘missing in action.’ I didn’t explain to her the fact that ‘missing in action’ is not necessarily ‘killed in action.’ You know? I didn’t even think about that. How do you think you feel when you find out you killed your mother?” —B-24 bombardier
* * *
— “I was in the hospital with a flak wound. The next mission, the entire crew was killed. The thing that haunts me is that I can’t put a face to the guy who was a replacement. He was an eighteen-year-old Jewish kid named Henry Vogelstein from Brooklyn. It was his first and last mission. He made his only mission with a crew of strangers.” —B-24 navigator
* * *
— “The German fighters picked us. I told the guys, ‘Keep your eyes open, we are about to be hit!’ I saw about six or eight feet go off my left wing. I rang the ‘bail-out’ signal, and I reached out and grabbed the co-pilot out of his seat. I felt the airplane climbing, and I thought to myself, ‘If this thing stalls out, and starts falling down backwards, no one is going to get out...’” —B-17 pilot
* * *
—“I get a little emotional. I’m almost 93; I hope to see them all again in heaven.”― B-17 TAIL GUNNER
* * *
Get it here: bit.ly/tofsair
QUESTIONS/COMMENTS?
Email me at [email protected]
FOLLOW ME ON BOOKBUB FOR NEW RELEASES!
; ALSO From Matthew Rozell
#1 best seller!
The Things Our Fathers Saw, Volume I
The Untold Stories of the World War II Generation from Hometown, USA
Voices of the Pacific Theater
Description
At the height of World War II, LOOK Magazine profiled a small American community for a series of articles portraying it as the wholesome, patriotic model of life on the home front. Decades later, author Matthew Rozell tracks down over thirty survivors who fought the war in the Pacific, from Pearl Harbor to the surrender at Tokyo Bay. The book resurrects firsthand accounts of combat and brotherhood, of captivity and redemption, and the aftermath of a war that left no American community unscathed. Here are the stories that the magazine could not tell, from a vanishing generation speaking to America today. It is up to us to remember—for our own sakes, as much as theirs.
-Featuring over a dozen custom maps and 35 photographs, including never-before-published portraits. Extended notes and companion website.
How soon we forget. Or perhaps, we were never told. That is understandable, given what they saw. But, it happened.
From the book:
— ‘I was talking to a shipmate of mine waiting for the motor launch, and all at once I saw a plane go over our ship. I did not know what it was, but the fellow with me said, 'That's a Jap plane, Jesus!' It went down and dropped a torpedo. Then I saw the Utah turn over.’ ~U.S. Navy seaman, Pearl Harbor
A Train Near Magdeburg Page 33
