A Train Near Magdeburg―The Holocaust, the survivors, and the American soldiers who saved them by Matthew Rozell ( Matthew A. Rozell)

As a daughter and daughter-in-law of US WWII infantrymen, I was very interested in this book. It was a very thought-provoking and troubling read. I fear that much of what happened during WWII is fading from our national memory. Books like this one by Matthew Rozell are very important to help preserve and remind all of humanity what we, as humans, can be capable of doing. Throughout history, genocide of one type or another has happened and still happens today; think ISIS, Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge, Rwanda, and the list continues. When we don't learn about what really happened and hear people like the Holocaust deniers gaining national voices in the news, we are doomed to allow this to happen again. Another note that strikes me here; my father was a POW, courtesy of the Nazi's. He spent the winter of 1944-45 starving to death and freezing in a German prison camp. He was liberated on April 14, 1945, one day after the Jews on the train near Magdeburg were also liberated. He too faced an uncertain recovery post starvation. Food caused him to vomit and he had to be hospitalized and fed very gradually to keep him alive. He had endured this severe winter without adequate clothing and many in his camp died of hypothermia and/or suffered frostbite and loss of toes and fingers. I shuddered to read of the 150 American POW's who were massacred by the SS rather than transported to a POW camp in Mr. Rozell's book. He could have suffered this fate, as many of the ill-fated Jews also suffered. We need to demand this subject be taught in our schools and make sure our children are aware of what can happen via propaganda and people not being willing to step up and speak up. As of now, I have encountered American college students, in the community college where I teach nursing, who could not tell me what decade the second world war occurred or what nations were involved. Sad, to be sure. Wake up America and the rest of the world as well. Please make sure we don't repeat this history again. Thank you!