A Train Near Magdeburg

by Matthew Rozell

  Again, working backward, I would also like to acknowledge Patricia Polan and her committee at the New York State Education Department for recommending me for an honor, The Louis E. Yavner Teaching Award for Distinguished Contributions to Teaching the Holocaust and Other Violations of Human Rights. Thank you to NYSED for your faith in me in bestowing me with this highlight of my career, and to Chancellor Rosa for offering me her seat in the Chancellor’s chair at the May 2016 Board of Regents meeting in Albany, and allowing me to express my support for Holocaust education. Thank you also for allowing me during the award presentation to recognize the support and accomplishments of my newly retired wife, Laura Vesey Rozell. Laura got an ovation, and while I know it does not make up for ignoring the ‘honey-do’ list at home while I was hammering out this book, I wanted people to recognize how important her work is, too. Laura spent 33 years in education, teaching on some days in the same school building as my mom, becoming my mom’s confidante and road trip companion in that far away era ‘BC’—before children. And later, she took my mother’s hand on Mom’s long, slow journey into twilight.

  Another important nod is to the ladies of the Jane McCrea Chapter of the National Society for the Daughters of the American Revolution, especially Melinda Durrler and Sharon Jensen, who nominated me for state and national teaching awards, which I was blessed to receive, and to other organizations which have also honored my work. I have been humbled, and I hope that I have lived up to your expectations.

  Naturally, I also wish to acknowledge the hundreds of students who passed through my life, especially my elective classes on World War II and the Holocaust, the kids who forged the bonds with the World War II generation and the Holocaust survivors. These students became time-traveling detectives as we pieced together fragments of the evidence of the Holocaust, listening to and recording original interviews, and now publishing them for the world to learn from. ‘It’s life-altering,’ said one teenager, ‘and because we’ve heard these stories, it’s our job to make sure it won’t happen again.’ I promised you this book someday, and now that many of you are yourselves parents, you can tell your children this book is for them. As promised, a special shout-out to these beta readers of parts of the early manuscript, who provided important ‘young adult’ feedback, and in some cases, even hammered away with me at the interviews herein—Miki Carbona-Cole, Taylor Carlisle, Casey Cicero, Abby Colvin, Caity Coutant, Kristina Delk, Nic Hall, Casey Heasley, Colin Kelsey, Tommy Kiernan, Leonard Kilmartin, Briannah Maloney, Christopher McKinney, Vincent Murphy, Antonio Nassivera, April Pelkey, Reanna Rainbow, Ned Rozell, Tom Salis, Destiny Sheldon, Megan Spirowski, Sean Valis, Rachael Weils, Cory Wilkins, Jacob Wojtowecz, and Connor Wood. Who says young people are indifferent to the past? Here is evidence to the contrary.

  The Hudson Falls Central School District Board of Education and my teaching and support colleagues have my deep appreciation for supporting our reunions and recognizing their significance throughout the years. Former superintendent Mark Doody ardently supported the concept of the reunions from the start, as did my late principal C.J. Hebert. My current principal, James Bennefield, was equally supportive for the last school reunion in 2011. The entire administrative team recognized the value of providing these once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for our students, our community, and neighboring communities. The district also promoted Holocaust education on a national and international level by allowing me the release time to travel to Washington, Toronto, Israel, and elsewhere for events I was invited to speak at. To Mary Murray, the secretary to the high school principal who also became the enthusiastic secretary for our multiple reunions, thank you for the invitations typed, the phone calls fielded, the messages cheerfully taken, the lists kept, the reservations made, the suggestions made that I never would have thought of, and on and on. But mostly, thank you for answering the phone in your cheerful ‘Mary’ voice—‘Mary Murray, High School’—the mere hearing of which completely melted away my stress levels during the summer of 2009 when I was questioning my sanity for undertaking the largest reunion/symposium (Chapter 17). A huge appreciation also to master organizer and history teacher Tara Winchell Sano, and Lisa Hogan, for being a step ahead of me, every step of the way. Mr. René Roberge served as the master of ceremonies on all occasions, underscoring the magnitude of the importance of the event with characteristic dignity and delivery. Diane Havern, Hudson Falls choral director, brought tears with her choraliers to the eyes of the veterans and the survivors with their rendition of our national anthem at the start of each day’s testimony.[*] Our IT department was also instrumental in the background of our success. We really could not have pulled it off without all of you, and thank you to the rest of the high school staff who were so enthusiastic and supportive. It was all truly a miracle, and not just for the survivors and liberators in attendance.

  Thank you also to the local businesses that generously supported the reunions, especially the Lake George Steamboat Company for two memorable evenings on the ‘Queen of American Lakes,’ and to the Havens family at Falls Farm and Garden in our town. Many, many local people also helped, so numerous to mention, but thank you especially to the John A. Leary family, who provided a generous contribution for reducing the expenses for our honored guests, made in honor of their father, a World War II torpedo bomber pilot who is profiled in my first book. Robert Dingman, my department chair for the first half of my career, introduced me to Judge Leary and other vets, and I suspect may have had a hand in bringing me on board at my alma mater so many years ago. Donald Bernhoft was the principal who gave me latitude in my darkest days (Chapter 8). My colleague Antoinette Sommo, the teacher who received ‘the pink slip layoff notice’ eventually returned to her job, and to this day thanks me for my knee-jerk suggestion that since she was suddenly out of work, she should ‘start your family’; she is one of my biggest fans. I also want to acknowledge my very first principal, John Christopher at St. Mary’s Academy in Glens Falls, for taking a chance on me as a new teacher, and instilling some quality ‘teacher life lessons’ early on. My wife and I became close with John and his wife Anne in their later years.

  As I prepared for the unprecedented scope of the 2009 school reunion in the weeks leading up to it, I had another person who helped me ‘flip the switch’ when I most needed it. My boyhood friend, Cold War submarine veteran Teddy Chittenden, packed me up in his car and whisked me the four hours south to Yankee Stadium on a Friday after school to witness New York Yankee legend Derek Jeter beat fellow Yankee legend Lou Gehrig's All-Time Yankee hit record on September 11, 2009. Late that evening, as we dodged the puddles of Manhattan’s thoroughfares, the memorial lights of the Twin Towers illuminated the clouds as we headed to my sister’s apartment for the night, poignantly driving home the importance of ‘never forgetting.’ The following summer, Ted chauffeured my children and me down to a gig at the New York Mets’ CitiField, where I was invited to speak on behalf of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s NYC Next Generation project initiative to an audience that included USHMM Council member and part-owner of the Mets, Jeff Wilpon. That evening we raised 50K for the Museum’s educational programming (although the Mets lost to the Cardinals in extra innings). After 50 years, it’s comforting to know that just when you need it the most, your old buddy still has your back.

  I wish also to thank the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for their support over the years. While I do not represent the Museum in any official capacity, we have enjoyed a long relationship, beginning with Peter J. Fredlake, the director of Teacher Education and Special Programs. It was Pete who saw the first AP news accounts of the 2007 reunion, and who invited me to apply to their Museum Teacher Fellowship program. Here I developed other important contacts and resources. Christina Chavarria, the program coordinator for education initiatives and resources, was an early source of support in recognizing that my students and I were going beyond the classroom and actively ‘collecting the evidence.’ I also worked with others in acquiri
ng resources for the USHMM, including Judy Cohen, the Chief Acquisitions Curator and Photo Archivist. That is why you can see the Benjamin photo and the Gross photo collection in Washington today, as well as many pieces of artwork created by train survivor Ervin Abadi. As researcher extraordinaire, Steven Vitto of the USHMM Holocaust Survivors and Victims Resource Center has proven himself time and again as a master detective when I needed obscure documents related to tracing a survivor’s path. Josh Blinder, video producer at the USHMM, orchestrated the official filming of the 2009 reunion and executed the film, Honoring Liberation, in time for the 2010 USHMM National Days of Remembrance ceremonies in Washington. In the Division of Outreach Technology, David Klevan worked with me on his profile of our project in his chapter in the well-received textbook, Essentials of Holocaust Education: Fundamental Issues and Approaches (Totten and Feinberg, 2016). It’s not inexpensive, but if you are a serious Holocaust education professional, you need it in your library. I also have a fond memory of the late Dan Napolitano, the former director of teacher education at the USHMM, encouraging me to go forth and tell this story. Finally, thank you, of course, to Museum Director Sara Bloomfield, who sat through my presentation for her development staff in the summer of 2009 and had the foresight to ask for Carrol Walsh’s letter to Steve Barry for the USHMM collections (Chapter 21), and for recognizing me before the 2010 Capitol Rotunda ceremony honoring the liberators. It was hard for my feet to touch the ground after that experience.

  Chris Carola of the Albany, NY, bureau of the Associated Press (Chapter 15) also has my gratitude for moving this story along, and helping to bring more survivors into the fold. He interviewed Carrol Walsh on numerous occasions during this project, and to their mutual delight, they realized that Chris’s dad was a highly regarded lawyer who Judge Walsh remembered from his time on the bench! Elizabeth Connolly, whose sons I had in class, welcomed me into her home to interview her dad and became a fast friend and supporter. Tim and John Gross, George C. Gross’s sons, were instrumental in helping me to bring their father’s photo collection to the light of day in the very beginning, when Dr. Gross wanted to share them with me, and later, the world. The rest of the families of Judge Walsh and Frank Towers were also very supportive and appreciative of this project; I hope that I did your fathers a measure of justice in this book.

  To my younger siblings Mary, Ned, Nora, and Drew, all accomplished writers and authors, thank you for your encouragement as well, and especially to Drew, who first planted the seed of writing the book as a personal journey. We were lucky that we had such great parents and wonderful teachers at Hudson Falls when we were young.

  Final and deepest appreciations go to my wife Laura and our children, Emma, Ned, and Mary. Ned accompanied me on many trips to the reunions as a young lad, and was lucky to have had his old man as his history teacher in three out of four of his high school years. Mary is on track to suffer a similar fate while our oldest, Emma, continues to be one of my biggest supporters. Thank you for indulging your old man as he attempted to bring to life the stories he collected as a young one.

  List of Reunions

  OF THE SOLDIERS AND SURVIVORS

  OF THE TRAIN NEAR MAGDEBURG

  Hudson Falls High School—Hudson Falls, NY—Sept. 2007

  30th Inf. Div. Vets of WWII—Fayetteville, NC—March 2008

  30th Inf. Div. Vets of WWII—Charleston, SC—March 2009

  Hudson Falls High School—Hudson Falls, NY—Sept. 2009

  ABC WORLD NEWS PERSON OF THE WEEK bit.ly/ABCWNPOW

  HONORING LIBERATION-USHMM bit.ly/HL2009

  30th Inf. Div. Vets of WWII—Nashville, TN—March 2010

  30th Inf. Div. Vets of WWII—Nashville, TN—March 2011

  The Weizmann Institute—Rehovot, Israel—May 2011

  Hudson Falls High School—Hudson Falls, NY—Sept. 2011

  30th Inf. Div. Vets of WWII—Savannah, GA—March 2012

  30th Inf. Div. Vets of WWII—Louisville, KY—April 2013

  30th Inf. Div. Vets of WWII—Savannah, GA—Feb. 2014

  30th Inf. Div. Vets of WWII—Nashville, TN—April 2015

  NOTES

  * * *

   Extermination- The term ‘extermination,’ when used in the context of industrial-scale mass murder, is common, but it is problematic for the author, for reasons to be developed.

   Kapos-camp police. They were prisoners selected by the SS as volunteers to supervise their fellow prisoners in exchange for privileges.

  [*] confronted her tormentors with her testimony-the four survivors in this chapter who testified at the Belsen Trial (Bimko, Sophia Litwinska, Fritz Leo, and Harold Osmond Le Druillenec) were NOT liberated on the ‘Train near Magdeburg.’ Every other survivor quoted in this book (30 of them) was on that transport. See ‘Epilogue.’

  [*] Forty-four other accused individuals were tried with him. Kramer and seven other men, and three women, were executed by hanging on Dec. 13, 1945. Nineteen others were also found guilty and received varying sentences.

   Aufseherin-female guard

  [*] nearly everybody in our camp got it- Throughout history, typhus has stalked humanity in the wake of wars, famine, and natural disasters. The bacterium is transmitted from one infected human to another by the louse; one scratches the bitten area and rubs the bacterium into the open wound. Symptoms include severe headache and muscle aches, sustained high fever and chills, rashes and coughs, stupor, sensitivity to light, delirium, and in many cases, death.

   ‘One is taught from the very beginning just to accept things as they are.’ On April 22, 1945, a Canadian Royal Air Force food and hunger expert and eyewitness noted, ‘There apparently is little concern and no marked line between the living and the dead, for those who are alive today may be dead tomorrow. In fact, during the critical stage of the food [shortage] in this camp, some of the inmates have turned to cannibalism and thereby the dead helped to sustain life for the living until food was made available after liberation.’ Celinscak, Mark. Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Concentration Camp. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2015. 67.

  In composing this chapter, the author has made reference to graphic encounters with cannibalism, which many readers will find disturbing. My intent is not shock value, but rather to portray the conditions in this section of the camp on the eve of liberation. Would humanity be better served if the troublesome details were omitted? Is the entire chapter not troublesome? Such is the instructor’s quandary in the teaching of the Holocaust. Indeed, such material should be employed judiciously, but always with the guiding question of, ‘Why am I presenting such material?’ The author acknowledges this dilemma and has chosen not to avoid the topic in the larger context of this book.

   Oranienburg-Chief SS administrative headquarters and training center, outside of Berlin.

  [*] RHSA–SS Reich Main Security Office. The organization's stated duty was to fight all ‘enemies of the Reich’ in and out of the borders of Nazi Germany.

  [*] Jews might prove useful in negotiations with the Allies even as more transports arrived- By this time, Himmler was clearly assessing his options, and would be about to attempt to enter into separate peace negotiations with the western Allies through an intermediary, without Hitler’s knowledge.

   Spanish and Greek-The Jewish population of the Greek city of Salonika was devastated between March and August of 1943. Out of 46,000 people, only 73 Greek Jews and 367 Jews of Sephardic Spanish descent and nationality made it to Belsen. The rest were whisked to Auschwitz and murdered. Shepard, Ben. After Daybreak: The Liberation of Bergen–Belsen, 1945. New York: Schocken Books, 2005. p214.

   the notes I have written in the camp and on the Aryan side -Vitis–Shomron kept a diary on scrap during her persecution. Here she refers to her time in hiding outside the Warsaw Ghetto, on the ‘Aryan side.’

   ‘selektzia’– selection for work or for death

&nb
sp; [*] As the sun rises after a sleepless night- this first transport to leave Belsen did not leave until additional cars were attached on April 7.

   Swabian-ethnic German people who are native to or have ancestral roots in the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia, in southwest Germany.

   they are normal ‘Pullmans,’ not freight cars-The train consisted of perhaps 50 mixed passenger and freight cars. Some survivors recall heavy weapons towards the rear, perhaps an additional car with anti–aircraft artillery guns.

  [*] Dr. Gross’s- Liberator George C. Gross

  [*] Aryan-The Nazis were obsessed with an ideology based on the myth of racial purity. All of human history was based on racial struggle, Hitler said, and the Nazis classified Jews as an inferior, corrupted ‘race’ slated for destruction, lest the German nation perish as the result of racial mixing. See USHMM article, ‘Victims of the Nazi Era: Nazi Racial Ideology’.

  [*] Judenparade-a ‘parade’ of Jews through the town

  [*] some did ask to be relieved, and they were- See Browning, Christopher R., Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: Harper Collins, 1998.

  [*] some people want to know more- In July 2016 the author received the following comment from a German visitor to my website: ‘Everything I read or see about this horror scenario of our German history makes me feel so sad and guilty, although I wasn’t even born at that time (I was born in 1971). My grandfather was a German soldier who had to go to war aged 19, without any alternative. He had to fight in Russia for so many years, hardest circumstances, and only survived because of his desertion at the last moment.