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NZ Herald
16-07-2025
- General
- NZ Herald
It was unbelievable - Andrew Roth, 97, remembers the day he was liberated from Buchenwald with complete clarity
'It was unbelievable,' he said. Recently, 80 years after the men first crossed paths, their lives intersected once again – though this time in Los Angeles, in the United States where they both live. Their reunion was arranged by the USC Shoah Foundation, with the goal of bringing together a survivor and a liberator whose lives converged amid the horrors of the war. Organisations like the USC Shoah Foundation are racing against time to acquire as many first-hand accounts as possible. Andrew Roth (centre) and Jack Moran with Robert Williams, chief executive officer of the USC Shoah Foundation. Photo / USCSF 'We are at this tipping point where the history could be lost, or it could remain relevant for future generations,' said Robert Williams, chief executive officer of the USC Shoah Foundation. 'I knew we were at a moment where both the liberators and the survivors were passing very quickly.' For Williams, the reunion between Roth and Moran felt urgent. Williams' own great-uncle, Cliff, was also a Buchenwald liberator. 'No one who was touched by the Holocaust walks away unchanged,' he said. 'This is a subject that shaped the present world, and we need to remember it.' Williams arranged for Roth and Moran to meet on June 5. He knew their conversation – which was recorded – would be meaningful to both of them, as well as those who listened to it. 'We've seen how powerful it has been in the past when survivors and liberators had the chance to meet one another and share their common bond,' he said. Indeed, although Moran and Roth had entirely different experiences during World War II, they felt an immediate kinship and connection. 'We felt like brothers,' said Moran, who is 99. 'I don't cry easily,' Roth said, 'but my eyes welled up when I saw him.' Jack Moran when he was in the United States Armed Forces. Photo / Family photo via the Washington Post Both men recounted their stories. Roth was born in Penészlek – a small village in Hungary – in September 1927, to an orthodox Jewish family. He had five siblings, only one of whom survived the Holocaust. The Nazis deported Roth and his family to a ghetto in Romania in 1944, and not long afterwards, they were sent in a cattle car to the Auschwitz death camp. 'After what seemed like an eternity, the train stopped,' Roth recalled. 'It was full of people, many of them were dead already.' When Roth arrived at the camp, he lied about his age, claiming he was 18 (he was 16), making him eligible to work. Guards were separating people into two lines, and while his mother and siblings went in one line, Roth followed his uncle and cousin to the other. 'It was my instinct,' said Roth, who received a numbered tattoo on his left arm by the Nazis, as part of their system to track and manage prisoners at Auschwitz. His family was murdered in a gas chamber that same day. Roth was transported to a forced labour camp, Buna, a sub-camp of Auschwitz. He remained there for about nine months, until he was moved to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Roth remained there for about three months until he was liberated. 'It was hell on earth. We had no blankets, no mattresses, no heat,' Roth said. 'You had to be very resourceful to survive.' He remembers starving. 'I stole food from the German Shepherds and the garbage can,' Roth said. 'I didn't mind climbing over a fence, even if I was electrified. I did what I had to do.' Writer Elie Wiesel was in Roth's block at Buchenwald, and after the war, he went on to write Night, a memoir based on his survival story. 'We had similar experiences, so when I read his book, I read my story,' Roth said. 'All the survivors, we felt like we were brothers.' A group photo at an orphanage in Ambloy, France, where Roth (top row, second from the right) ended up after the war with other Buchenwald prisoners, along with the female social workers who helped take care of them. Photo / Family photo via the Washington Post Before they were liberated, Roth said, they were not given food for 40 days. 'The only thing I ate in those 40 days was dog food,' he said. When US soldiers, including Moran, arrived to free him, 'it was a sign from heaven', Roth said. 'I couldn't believe it could happen.' Since that day, Roth has celebrated his birthday on April 11. 'I was born again,' said Roth, who worked for the Hungarian Embassy in Paris after the war, and later moved to Los Angeles, where he worked for another Holocaust survivor who owned a carpet business. He went on to start his own carpet business, and he continues to be a real estate investor. He has two children and two grandchildren. For Moran, who was born in Superior, Wisconsin in 1925, April 11, 1945 was also a momentous day. 'It was a miracle,' he said. 'It felt good comforting these people, giving them some of our rations.' Moran was 17 when he enlisted in the army, and he was deployed to the battlefields of Western Europe in 1944. During his first battle in the Saar Valley, he lost his four best friends. 'It was very sad … people were dropping like flies,' he said. 'I had seen so many kids fallen. We took it as a product of war and kept going. We had no choice.' During the Battle of the Bulge – the final major German offensive on the Western Front – Moran was stuck in a frozen foxhole for six days. 'We had no food after the third day, and the snow was our water because we had no water,' Moran said. 'I was scared to death, freezing. There were dead bodies around us but we couldn't move, we had to live with them.' While in Nazi-occupied Europe, Moran said he saw many signs of the Holocaust. 'I remember opening up the doors of several boxcars, and there would be hundreds of suitcases,' he said. 'The owners never got to see their suitcases again.' 'It's tragic that someone had the power to do that to the human race,' Moran added. Of the 33 men in his platoon, Moran said, only two returned to the US alive. Moran moved to Milwaukee after the war, then settled in Los Angeles, where he worked for a brewing company. He has three children, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. 'It was just an absolute miracle that I survived,' said Moran, who, for the last 20 years, has spent his time connecting with the families of lost soldiers. 'That gives me great joy … to give them comfort.' It also gave him joy to meet Roth, who he now considers 'a good new friend'. 'He and I hugged and shared our good thoughts,' Moran said. 'He thanked me for liberating the camp, and I was congratulating him on being able to survive.' Their reunion was a powerful reminder of all that was lost – and saved. 'I'm grateful to people like Jack, who took the trouble to fight for us,' Roth said. 'It was very brave of them.'
IOL News
16-07-2025
- General
- IOL News
Eight decades later, a Holocaust survivor reunites with his liberator
Andrew Roth, left, with Jack Moran during their reunion on June 5. Roth is a Holocaust survivor, and Jack Moran was one of the American soldiers who liberated him from Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945. Image: Courtesy of USCSF Sydney Page Jack Moran entered Buchenwald concentration camp on April 11, 1945. Immediately, he said, he was overcome by what he saw. An American soldier, Moran was there to help liberate more than 21,000 people, most of them Jews, who had been imprisoned there for months or even years. Moran, then 19, saw emaciated prisoners barely clinging to life. 'They treated them like cattle,' he said. 'They were malnourished; they needed medical attention.' Among the prisoners was Andrew Roth, a Jewish Hungarian teenager who had survived several concentration camps, including Auschwitz. Roth, 97, remembers the day he was liberated from Buchenwald with complete clarity. 'It was unbelievable,' he said. An undated photo of Jack Moran when he was in the United States Armed Forces. Image: Family photo Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading Recently, 80 years after the men first crossed paths, their lives intersected once again – though this time in Los Angeles, where they both live. Their reunion was arranged by the USC Shoah Foundation, with the goal of bringing together a survivor and a liberator whose lives converged amid the horrors of the war. Organizations like the USC Shoah Foundation are racing against time to acquire as many firsthand accounts as possible. 'We are at this tipping point where the history could be lost, or it could remain relevant for future generations,' said Robert Williams, chief executive officer of the USC Shoah Foundation. 'I knew we were at a moment where both the liberators and the survivors were passing very quickly.' For Williams, the reunion between Roth and Moran felt urgent. Williams' own great-uncle, Cliff, was also a Buchenwald liberator. 'No one who was touched by the Holocaust walks away unchanged,' he said. 'This is a subject that shaped the present world, and we need to remember it.' Williams arranged for Roth and Moran to meet on June 5. He knew their conversation – which was recorded – would be meaningful to both of them, as well as those who listened to it. The two men, Roth, left, and Moran, right, recounted their stories in a recorded interview. Image: Courtesy of USCSF 'We've seen how powerful it has been in the past when survivors and liberators had the chance to meet one another and share their common bond,' he said. Indeed, although Moran and Roth had entirely different experiences during the Second World War, they felt an immediate kinship and connection. 'We felt like brothers,' said Moran, who is 99. 'I don't cry easily,' Roth said, 'but my eyes welled up when I saw him.' A group photo at an orphanage in Ambloy, France, where Roth ended up after the war with other Buchenwald prisoners, along with the female social workers who helped take care of them. Roth is top row, second from the right. Image: Family photo Both men recounted their stories. Roth was born in Penészlek – a small village in Hungary – in September 1927, to an orthodox Jewish family. He had five siblings, only one of whom survived the Holocaust. The Nazis deported Roth and his family to a ghetto in Romania in 1944, and not long after, they were sent in a cattle car to the Auschwitz death camp. 'After what seemed like an eternity, the train stopped,' Roth recalled. 'It was full of people, many of them were dead already.' When Roth arrived at the camp, he lied about his age, claiming he was 18 (he was 16), making him eligible to work. Guards were separating people into two lines, and while his mother and siblings went in one line, Roth followed his uncle and cousin to the other. 'It was my instinct,' said Roth, who received a numbered tattoo on his left arm by the Nazis, as part of their system to track and manage prisoners at Auschwitz. The two men hugging during their meeting. Image: Courtesy of USCSF His family was murdered in a gas chamber that same day. Roth was transported to a forced labor camp, Buna, a sub-camp of Auschwitz. He remained there for about nine months, until he was moved to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Roth remained there for about three months until he was liberated. 'It was hell on earth. We had no blankets, no mattresses, no heat,' Roth said. 'You had to be very resourceful to survive.' He remembers starving. 'I stole food from the German Shepherds and the garbage can,' Roth said. 'I didn't mind climbing over a fence, even if I was electrified. I did what I had to do.' Writer Elie Wiesel was in Roth's block at Buchenwald, and after the war, he went on to write 'Night,' a memoir based on his survival story. 'We had similar experiences, so when I read his book, I read my story,' Roth said. 'All the survivors, we felt like we were brothers.' Before they were liberated, Roth said, they were not given food for 40 days. 'The only thing I ate in those 40 days was dog food,' he said. When U.S. soldiers, including Moran, arrived to free him, 'it was a sign from heaven,' Roth said. 'I couldn't believe it could happen.' Since that day, Roth has celebrated his birthday on April 11. 'I was born again' said Roth, who worked for the Hungarian Embassy in Paris after the war, and later moved to Los Angeles, where he worked for another Holocaust survivor who owned a carpet business. He went on to start his own carpet business, and he continues to be a real estate investor. He has two children and two grandchildren. For Moran, who was born in Superior, Wisconsin in 1925, April 11, 1945 was also a momentous day. 'It was a miracle,' he said. 'It felt good comforting these people, giving them some of our rations.' Moran was 17 when he enlisted in the army, and he was deployed to the battlefields of Western Europe in 1944. During his first battle in the Saar Valley, he lost his four best friends. 'It was very sad … people were dropping like flies' he said. 'I had seen so many kids fallen. We took it as a product of war and kept going. We had no choice.' During the Battle of the Bulge – the final major German offensive on the Western Front – Moran was stuck in a frozen foxhole for six days. 'We had no food after the third day, and the snow was our water because we had no water,' Moran said. 'I was scared to death, freezing. There were dead bodies around us but we couldn't move, we had to live with them.' While in Nazi-occupied Europe, Moran said he saw many signs of the Holocaust. 'I remember opening up the doors of several boxcars, and there would be hundreds of suitcases,' he said. 'The owners never got to see their suitcases again.' 'It's tragic that someone had the power to do that to the human race,' Moran added. Of the 33 men in his platoon, Moran said, only two returned to the United States alive. Moran moved to Milwaukee after the war, then settled in Los Angeles, where he worked for a brewing company. He has three children, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. 'It was just an absolute miracle that I survived,' said Moran, who, for the last 20 years, has spent his time connecting with the families of lost soldiers. 'That gives me great joy … to give them comfort.' It also gave him joy to meet Roth, who he now considers 'a good new friend.' 'He and I hugged and shared our good thoughts,' Moran said. 'He thanked me for liberating the camp, and I was congratulating him on being able to survive.' Their reunion was a powerful reminder of all that was lost – and saved. 'I'm grateful to people like Jack, who took the trouble to fight for us,' Roth said. 'It was very brave of them."
Wall Street Journal
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Antisemitism and the Teachers Union
Anti-Israel and anti-American radicals have set college campuses afire in the past two years. In too many places, they turned quads into combat zones, harassed Jewish students in dorms, and shut down debate in classrooms. Now we have a new, even more terrifying problem: The radicals are turning their sights on K-12 classrooms. Last week the National Education Association used its annual conference to adopt a measure that effectively prevents the union's members from 'using, endorsing or publicizing' any educational materials created by the Anti-Defamation League, one of the oldest and leading Jewish organizations in America. For decades ADL curricula has been the gold standard for helping students understand and navigate the complex issues of bigotry and prejudice. Our peer-reviewed programs have helped educators instruct pupils about how bias can grow and mutate over time if left unchecked. We developed our Holocaust education offering, 'Echoes and Reflections,' in collaboration with Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the USC Shoah Foundation. It offers lessons on the Holocaust and its eternal resonance for all people. One of our main educational offerings, 'No Place for Hate,' is a student-led program used in more than 2,000 schools across the U.S. every year. Through classroom content and extracurricular activities, the program offers a message of inclusion that is entirely apolitical. It's designed solely to bring students together to better understand the differences that too often divide us. Against this backdrop, the NEA's move is both insidious and vindictive. This wasn't about the ADL. It was a clear and unambiguous statement to Jewish educators, parents and children: You don't count. And it perversely takes this stance at a time when anti-Jewish hate is skyrocketing.
Axios
06-04-2025
- General
- Axios
The soldiers of color who freed concentration camps 80 years ago
U.S. forces liberated Nazi concentration camps 80 years ago this month. Among the liberators were Black, Latino, Asian American and Native American soldiers whose actions today are often forgotten. Why it matters: The Pentagon recently purged references to soldiers of color from its websites, per an order by President Trump. But civil rights advocates say the liberators warrant recognition for their service at a time when many returned home to discrimination, segregation and racial violence. The big picture: U.S. forces liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, on April 11, 1945 — the first of many camps to be freed on the western front from April to May. It's unclear how many soldiers of color were involved. But evidence collected during the past 25 years indicates that many who helped liberate camps where Jews were imprisoned were themselves in racially segregated military units. Robert Williams of the USC Shoah Foundation, a group that preserves survivor testimonies of the Holocaust, tells Axios the soldiers' actions at the camps and throughout the war speak volumes today, amid the nation's rising antisemitism and distrust between some groups. Zoom in: Holocaust museums and civil rights projects have been racing to collect oral histories, memoirs and family statements to piece together this overlooked part of the liberation story. The USC Shoah Foundation, the Voces Oral History Center at the University of Texas, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem in Israel are among those that have collected testimonies of survivors and liberators. The liberators "were not only willing to fight, but eager to fight for the liberal democratic ideals of the United States, despite facing oppression of racism and marginalization at home," Williams says. What they're saying: "I closed my eyes and waited to be shot. Then, I heard him speak English," Dachau survivor Solly Ganor said in a 1993 interview, recalling when soldiers in a Jeep found him in the snow. Ganor recalled looking up and seeing Asian "angels. ... I didn't know what to make of this." One of the men who found the teenaged Ganor was Clarence Matsumura, a Japanese American soldier in the segregated 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, which was made up of Asian Americans from the West Coast and Hawaii. Matsumura wrapped Ganor in a blanket and carried him to safety, saving his life. Johnnie Meza Marino, a Mexican American soldier from Texas, told The Voces Oral History Center in 2001 that his unit liberated the Hadamar and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps in Germany. Marino, who died in 2015, recalled that as his unit approached more camps, he noticed dust flakes falling on his uniform — from the tall chimney of one of the camps' crematoriums. Another soldier recalled how being a liberator affected him. "When I entered the Bushenwald concentration camp, I was an angry Black soldier," Leon Bass, who died in 2015, recalled in his 2011 memoir."My blinders had come off ... I now understood that human suffering was not relegated to just me." Zoom out: More than 1.5 million soldiers of color served during World War II in the European and Pacific theaters. Black and Asian American service members were forced to serve in segregated units. Japanese American soldiers served while their families back home were forced into detention camps. Mexican American and Native American soldiers served with white soldiers but often faced intense discrimination. Their experiences led some of the soldiers to work for civil rights once they returned home, Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, founder and director of The Voces Oral History Center, tells Axios. "When you were able to see human beings as human beings, and see our common humanity, then I think that you don't just advocate for opportunities for your own group," Rivas-Rodriguez said. The experience would plague others, such as Jack Bushyhead, a member of the Cherokee Nation and who took part in the liberation of Dachau on April 29, 1945. Visions of the starved victims Bushyhead saw on the Nazis' "death train" haunted him until his death in 1977. "When he was inebriated, he would even see these people — he called them the little people,'' his daughter, Jaxine Bushyhead Gasper, told the Boston Globe in 2001. ''He just drank himself to death. I don't think Dad ever got over the war.'' Others would go on to speak out against antisemitism and help create local Holocaust museums.
The Guardian
28-02-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Rose Girone, believed to be oldest living Holocaust survivor, dies aged 113
Rose Girone, believed to be the oldest living Holocaust survivor and a strong advocate for sharing survivors' stories, has died. She was 113. She died Monday in New York, according to the Claims Conference, a New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. 'She just was a terrific lady,' her daughter, Reha Benicassa, said by phone Friday. 'Nothing was too hard. She wasn't fearful. She was an adventurous person. She did well.' Girone was born on 13 January 1912 in Janow, Poland. Her family moved to Hamburg, Germany, when she was six, she said in a filmed interview in 1996 with the USC Shoah Foundation. When asked by the interviewer if she had any particular career plans before Adolf Hitler, she said that he 'came in 1933 and then it was over for everybody'. Girone was one of about 245,000 survivors still living across more than 90 countries, according to a study released by the Claims Conference last year. Their numbers are quickly dwindling, as most are very old and often of frail health, with a median age of 86. 'Rose was an example of fortitude but now we are obligated to carry on in her memory,' Greg Schneider, Claims Conference executive vice-president, said in a statement Thursday. 'The lessons of the Holocaust must not die with those who endured the suffering.' Six million European Jews and people from other minorities were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust. 'This passing reminds us of the urgency of sharing the lessons of the Holocaust while we still have first-hand witnesses with us,' Schneider said. 'The Holocaust is slipping from memory to history, and its lessons are too important, especially in today's world, to be forgotten.' Girone married Julius Mannheim in 1937 through an arranged marriage. She was nine months pregnant living in Breslau, which is now Wroclaw, Poland, when Nazis arrived to take Mannheim to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Their family had two cars, so she asked her husband to leave his keys. She said she remembers one Nazi saying: 'Take that woman also.' The other Nazi responded: 'She's pregnant, leave her alone.' The next morning her father-in-law was also taken, and she was left alone with their housekeeper. After her daughter Reha was born in 1938, Girone was able to secure Chinese visas from relatives in London and secure her husband's release. In Genoa, Italy, when Reha was only six months old, they boarded a ship to Japan-occupied Shanghai with little more than clothing and some linens. Her husband first made money through buying and selling secondhand goods. He saved up to buy a car and started a taxi business, while Girone knitted and sold sweaters. But in 1941, Jewish refugees were rounded up into a ghetto. The family of three were forced to cram into a bathroom in a house while roaches and bed bugs crawled through their belongings. Her father-in-law came just before the second world war started, but fell ill and died. They had to wait in line for food and lived under the rule of a ruthless Japanese man who called himself 'King of the Jews.' 'They did really horrible things to people,' Girone said of the Japanese military trucks that patrolled the streets. 'One of our friends got killed because he wouldn't move fast enough.' Information about the war in Europe only circulated in the form of rumors as British radios were not allowed. When the war was over, they began receiving mail from Girone's mother, grandmother and other relatives in the US. With their help, they boarded a ship to San Francisco in 1947 with only $80, which Girone hid inside buttons. They arrived in New York City in 1947. She later started a knitting store with the help of her mother. 'Her theories were always, 'Don't sweat the small stuff,' and 'anything you can fix with money is not a problem,'' her daughter said. 'She just had a great head on her shoulders.' Also in New York, Girone was reunited with her brother, who went to France for school and ended up getting his US citizenship by joining the army. When she went to the airport to pick him up in New York, it was her first time seeing him in 17 years. Girone later divorced Mannheim. In 1968, she met Jack Girone, the same day her granddaughter was born. By the next year they were married. He died in 1990. When asked in 1996 for the message she would like to leave for her daughter and granddaughter, she said: 'Nothing is so very bad that something good shouldn't come out of it. No matter what it is.'
