[*] LazyBoy-[sic] La-Z-Boy, brand name for a popular upholstered reclining chair.
[*] That call was a direct result of the work- Dr. Gross ended this communication thusly: ‘I think your community is very fortunate to have such a dedicated and scholarly teacher. You may repeat or show that remark to your principal and superintendent and say that it comes from one who has taught every grade from ninth through graduate seminars, who was head of a high school English Department for ten years, who taught ‘English Methods’ to prospective high school English teachers for several years, was a full professor (now emeritus) at San Diego State, and served for eleven years as Dean of Faculty Affairs. I am thus experienced in judging what makes a superior teacher, and from all I have seen, you are certainly a member of that small band.’
[*] names of the liberating Army units are called out-The 30th Infantry Division was not formally recognized as a liberating unit until after heavy lobbying by Frank W. Towers. As author Michael Hirsh (The Liberators, 2010) has pointed out, the recognition agreement between the USHMM and the US Army Center for Military History is well-intentioned but poorly drawn. Soldiers who fell liberating Europe are not formally credited, and neither were the soldiers of the 30th Infantry Div. or 743rd Tank Btn., because they had not been found to liberate a ‘recognized camp.’ The train did not count! Further research revealed that the 30th had also liberated two subcamps near Magdeburg on April 12. Since 2013, thanks to Frank, the 30th’s flag is now displayed in the Museum lobby and is part of the official Days of Remembrance ceremonies.
[*] View this and the ABC World News video at the links in ‘List of Reunions.’
[*] Francis Currey, MOH, was the vice president of the 30th Infantry Division Veterans of World War II at the time he came to the high school with the rest of the soldiers. At the time, he was the only surviving World War II Medal of Honor recipient in New York and New England, having received the nation’s highest award for his actions as a nineteen-year-old during the Battle of the Bulge. See more at http://bit.ly/CurreyMOH.
[*] buried down the knoll adjacent to the train-A friend touring the site in August 2016 noted, ‘Near [the liberation site] was the local Farsleben cemetery and there are 36 Jews buried, four known and 32 unknown.’ He added, ‘[At Hillersleben] There are 138 Jews buried in the park, all the names are on a fence marker, however, there were only 5 graves marked individually…and they do have a map where everyone is buried. The 5 grave stones were bought by their families, the rest of the graves have no individual marker although they all have their own spots in the park.’ Ron Chaulet, email communication, 8-14-2016.
[*] Mr. Gantz wrote to the author on Nov. 3, 2011-‘On May 8, 1945, our unit began to re-staff our hospitals and clinic with German [POW] personnel. Twenty German medical officers headed by 2 Colonels, 86 German nurses, and 55 German enlisted men were brought to our camp from the prisoner-of-war compound controlled by our 95th Medical Bn. They were gradually filtered into the key spots until finally Co. C personnel acted in a supervisory capacity only. As you can surmise, Matt, after more than 65 years I myself could only present a very fragmented story. Thanks to the battalion’s history, it was possible for me to provide for an otherwise lapsed memory.’
[*] eliminated all these German soldiers-They were most certainly sent to the PW cages to the rear.
[*] The author was familiar with the survivor Ariela and knew she would like to contact Walter. She called him, and later gave her account to a newspaper. ‘Those soldiers, they gave me my life, because I was very sick…He’s one of the angels,’ Mrs. Rojek said of Mr. Gantz. ‘I’m really grateful. Whenever I get a name and phone number, I always call them. They gave me a second life.’ Mr. Gantz, 87, said the whole experience has made him feel ‘10 feet tall.’ ‘I have to use the word ‘mind-boggling.’ I guess you’d have to put it in the category of a dream,’ he said. ‘I have to be honest with you, it’s embarrassing. All they keep saying is, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.'
McAuliffe, Josh. ‘Bergen–Belsen concentration camp survivors make contact with WWII medic Walter Gantz.’ The Scranton Times-Tribune, March 4, 2012.
[*] Huppert, Hilde. Hand in Hand with Tommy is the amazing memoir of a Polish mother liberated on the Train Near Magdeburg in which she recounts her odyssey through not only the Holocaust, but also in bringing with her and her son Tommy over 100 orphans to British Palestine in July 1945. It is she who is referenced in the letter to her husband by an American soldier in the introduction of this book; Lily was one of those orphans. The author’s friend in Israel, Varda Weisskopf, tracked down Lily and nearly 90 other survivors from this train after learning of this project.
[*] the link in Porat’s book – https://teachinghistorymatters.com/.
[*] give this letter to some other people- the author shared the contents of this letter, with permission, at a meeting with top officers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in the summer of 2009. The director was present and requested it for deposit in the Museum’s repository, which the author facilitated.
[*] That is how I feel- the link to this 50-minute radio broadcast is archived here: www.thestory.org/stories/2009-05/memorial-day-special-reunion.
[*] Paul Arato’s wife Rona has written a popular young adult book on his Holocaust experiences and then meeting his liberators as a result of the author’s work. The Last Train-A Holocaust Story can be seen at bit.ly/lasttrain2013.
[*] In 2011, Frank and I met over 500 people who were alive-Varda Weisskopf orchestrated this reunion in May 2011 at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel. It was financed by the families of the survivors in attendance for Frank and his son. The author was able to attend because of the generosity of survivor friends, the 30th Infantry Division of WWII Association, and his own community.
[*] Shabbat-the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday, commencing sundown Friday evening through sundown on Saturday.
Mary and Jimmy Butterfield were married for 67 years. After the war, they were the proud owners and operators of Butterfield’s Grocery Store in Glens Falls for 40 years. It was said that Mr. Butterfield could tell the denomination of the bill that was handed to him by its texture and touch. Mary passed in October 2012; Jim passed the following summer.
[*] brought tears to the eyes of the veterans and the survivors with their rendition of our national anthem-watch a clip of that here: bit.ly/rtw2011.
* * *
[1] Celinscak, Mark. Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Concentration Camp. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2015. 42. Also, Shepard, Ben. After Daybreak: The Liberation of Bergen–Belsen, 1945. New York: Schocken Books, 2005. 4. And the figure of 60,000 is also given by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum—see USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopedia. Bergen–Belsen. ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005224.
However, the Bergen–Belsen Memorial currently puts the figure at 53,000. ‘53,000 prisoners were liberated at Bergen–Belsen by the British Army; 38,000 in the concentration camp and 15,000 in the satellite camp in the nearby army barracks.’ See the Bergen Belsen catalogue pp. 258-59; also the web description at bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/concentration-camp/liberation.
[2] Phillips, Raymond, Editor. War Crimes Trials—Vol. II: The Belsen Trial–'The Trial of Josef Kramer and Forty Four Others' (with a foreword by Lord Jowitt). London: W. Hodge, 1949. This trial was held between September and November, 1945, at Luneburg, Germany, before a British military court for war crimes committed against Allied nationals in the concentration camps at Belsen and Auschwitz. A most excellent and complete online source of the testimony can be found below, and all the testimony found in Chapter 1 related to the trial was gathered here. www.bergenbelsen.co.uk/pages/Trial/TrialFront/TrialFront_01.
[3] Bauer, Yehuda. Jews For Sale? Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933-1945. New Haven, Conn. and London: Yale University Press, 1994. 168. There were numerous attempts to bribe officials in order to save Jews. Dr. Bauer's Jews for
Sale? is the definitive source for research on this. Most efforts were unsuccessful, but two efforts in 1944 succeeded. More than 1,900 people, mainly Hungarian Jews (including a transport from Bergen-Belsen in early December), made it to safety in Switzerland. The principal negotiator for these two transports, Rudolph (Rezsö) Kasztner, remains a controversial individual, who was later assassinated for determining which Hungarian Jews to save during the Holocaust, while others perished. See also Anna Porter's Kasztner's Train: The True Story of Rezsö Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust (2007).
[4] Phillips, The Belsen Trial.
[5] Hadassah ‘Ada’ Bimko lost her first husband and young son at Auschwitz. In 1946, she married fellow survivor Josef Rosensaft, who was chairman of the Jewish Committee of Bergen–Belsen, which oversaw the day-to-day administration of the displaced-persons camp for Bergen–Belsen survivors from 1945 to 1950. Dr. Rosensaft also held high posts in the Bergen–Belsen displaced persons camp and the Central Jewish Committee in the British Zone. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the inaugural United States Holocaust Memorial Council. She passed away in 1997 at the age of 85. At her death, she had been the honorary president of the World Federation of Bergen–Belsen Survivors Associations for two decades. In 1981, she recalled, ‘There was no ecstasy, no joy at our liberation. We had lost our families, our homes. We had no place to go, nobody to hug. Nobody was waiting for us anywhere. We had been liberated from the fear of death, but we were not free from the fear of life.’ Source Notes: Phillips, The Belsen Trial; Pace, Eric. ‘Hadassah Rosensaft, 85, Dies, Saved Auschwitz Inmates.’ The New York Times, October 8, 1997; Rosensaft, Menachem Z. ‘Hadassah Rosensaft.’ Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. March 1, 2009. Jewish Women's Archive.
[6] Shepard, Ben. After Daybreak: The Liberation of Bergen–Belsen, 1945. New York: Schocken Books, 2005. 14.
[7] Bauer, Yehuda. Jews For Sale? Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933-1945. New Haven, Conn. and London: Yale University Press, 1994. 229.
[8] Phillips, The Belsen Trial.
[9] Stafford, David. Endgame, 1945: The Missing Final Chapter of World War II. New York: Little, Brown and Company. 2007. 88.
[10] The transports would be headed for the Theresienstadt concentration camp, which at the time was far enough from advancing Allied lines and indeed would prove to be the last camp liberated on the last day of the war. Only one train made it there. The other two were liberated, one by the Americans at Farsleben near Magdeburg, and the other by the Russians near Tröbitz. As conflicting information from various sources was found, the author contacted Bernd Horstmann of the Bergen–Belsen Memorial, who confirmed the following from his files:
‘The following groups of the Exchange Camp left the Exchange Camp of Bergen-Belsen:
a) 06 April 45 – around 2,500 Jewish people
b) 07 April 45 – 179 Jewish people left Bergen-Belsen. This group was put into train wagons and those were attached to the first train a few kilometres after because the first train stopped for hours.
This [first] train with nearly 2,700 people was liberated at Farsleben on 13 April 1945.
c) 09 April 45 – 1,712 Jewish people – train arrived at Theresienstadt on 20 April 45
d) 10 April 45 – 2,400 Jewish people – train was liberated at Tröbitz on 23 April 45
The date in the map of our catalogue should be corrected to 06 April 45. Probably it was written 07 April because the eye-witness of the route was in the group b) that left on 07 April. You are also right that after leaving Bergen-Belsen concentration camp it took hours and hours until the prisoners marched 7 kilometres to the ramp near the town Belsen (not Celle), and entered the wagons of the train. At the same time when the Jewish hostages of the Exchange Camp left Bergen-Belsen, thousands of other prisoners—slave workers—arrived at the ramp and marched in the opposite direction.’ Horstmann, Bernd, email communication, May 24, 2013.
[11] Smitha, Frank. Macrohistory and World Timeline: The Final Three Months. www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch23-9.htm
[12]USHMM, Common Questions about the Holocaust www.ushmm.org/educators/teaching-about-the-holocaust/common-questions
[13] United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Kristallnacht. www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005201
[14] USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopedia. Kristallnacht. www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005201
[15] Dart, John. Scholars Seek Substitute for the Word 'Holocaust'. Los Angeles Times, April 9, 1994. articles.latimes.com/1994-04-09/local/me-44075_1_word-holocaust. See also Fleet, Josh, History And Meaning Of The Word ‘Holocaust’: Are We Still Comfortable With This Term? The Huffington Post, March 28, 2012. www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/27/the-word-holocaust-history-and-meaning_n_1229043.
[16] USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopedia. Euthanasia Program. www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005200
[17] Ginott, Haim G. Teacher and Child: A Book for Parents and Teachers. New York, NY: Macmillan. 1975.
[18] See Dubois, Patrick. The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest's Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2009. This groundbreaking work by a French Catholic priest calls attention to the previously under-recorded chapter in Holocaust studies. See also the ongoing research and fieldwork at www.yahadinunum.org.
[19] Kaye, Ephraim. ‘The Decision to Kill the Jews—The Final Solution and Its Implementation.’ Lecture notes, International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel. July 13, 2016.
[20] Gleis 17 Memorial—Berlin Grunewald www.memorialmuseums.org/eng/staettens/view/338/Mahnmal-Gleis-17-E28093--Berlin-Grunewald
[21] USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopedia. The Rosenstrasse Demonstration. www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10008064
[22] USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopedia. Theresienstadt. www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005424
[23] USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopedia. Belzec. www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005191
[24] USHMM. Holocaust Encyclopedia. Warsaw Ghetto. www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005069
[25] USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopedia. Warsaw. www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005069
[26] From July 22 until September 12, 1942, German SS and police units, assisted by auxiliaries, carried out mass deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka killing center. During this period, the Germans deported about 265,000 Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka; they killed approximately 35,000 Jews inside the ghetto during the operation. USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopedia. Warsaw. www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005069
[27] USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopedia. ‘Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp: Administration.’ www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007300
[28] USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopedia. ‘Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp: Administration.’
[29] USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopedia. Aktion ‘Erntefest’ (Operation ‘Harvest Festival’) www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005222
[30] Chylak, Anna. The 70th Anniversary of the Liquidation of Hotel Polski. Jewish Historical Institute. July 13, 2013.
www.jhi.pl/en/blog/2013-07-13-the-70th-anniversary-of-the-liquidation-of-hotel-polski.
[31] Chylak, Anna. The 70th Anniversary of the Liquidation of Hotel Polski. Jewish Historical Institute.
[32] Snow, Richard. A Nation at War With Itself. The Wall Street Journal. April 19, 2016. www.wsj.com/articles/a-nation-at-war-with-itself-1461104812
[33] Porter, Anna, as relayed in Meisels, Leslie. Suddenly The Shadow Fell (The Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs) The Azrieli Foundation. 2014. xvi.
[34] Author notations from Ghetto Fighters' House Museum panels, Lohamei HaGeta'ot, Israel, July 18, 2016.
[35] USHMM, Holocaust Encyclopedia. Hungary after the German occupation. www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005458
[36] Gabor Aron Study Group. ‘Hungary in the Mirror of the Western World, 1938-1958’. www.hungarianhistory.com/lib/mirr
or
[37] Levi, Primo. Primo Levi's Heartbreaking, Heroic Answers to the Most Common Questions He Was Asked About ‘Survival in Auschwitz’. The New Republic, February 17, 1986. newrepublic.com/article/119959/interview-primo-levi-survival-auschwitz
[38] Porter, Anna, as found in Meisels, Leslie. Suddenly The Shadow Fell (The Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs) The Azrieli Foundation. 2014. xxiii.
[39] {Please refer to Note 3 for more on Rudolph (Rezsö) Kasztner}– ‘Eichmann offered Kasztner a chance to send 30,000 Jews to Austria instead of Auschwitz. In fact, only 18,000-20,000 Jews, mostly from Debrecen, Szeged, Baja, and Szolnok, were sent to the areas around Vienna to work. The Nazis could have sent the women, the elderly, and the children to Auschwitz. In this case they did not do so*, perhaps because of the Kasztner negotiations. By keeping these people alive temporarily—Kaltenbrunner [leader of the Austrian SS] pointed out… that the labor was indeed temporary—essential labor needs could be satisfied, and the prospect of further negotiations could be kept open. In the end, some of the 18,000-20,000 were shipped to Bergen–Belsen, some to Theresienstadt, and the rest stayed on near Vienna. About 12,000 survived.’ Bauer, Yehuda. Jews For Sale? Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933-1945. New Haven, Conn. and London: Yale University Press, 1994. 201. they did not do so*-My emphasis. It would appear that the testimony of Meisels and Bleier-Muskal, as recorded later in Chapter 7, contradicts this part of the above statement, regarding at least some of the elderly, women, and children.
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