Public Invited to Meet WWII Holocaust Liberators at NYS Military Museum

LATHAM, NY (04/25/2011)(readMedia)-- World War II veterans of the Army's 42nd Infantry "Rainbow" Division will share their memories of the notorious Concentration Camp Dachau with the public at the New York State Military History Museum at 2 p.m. on the 66th anniversary of the camp's liberation by division Soldiers on April 29.

The hour-long commemoration precedes this weekend's global Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom Hashoah, on Sunday, May 1.

The two Rainbow Division veterans will view the temporary exhibit at the New York State Military History Museum, "Names Instead of Numbers," which highlights the lives of Dachau prisoners under the Nazi regime from 1933-1945.

Capital Region veterans of the 42nd Infantry Division, George Williams of Niskayuna and Richard Marowitz of Albany will join modern day representatives of the 42nd Infantry, now a combat division of the New York Army National Guard based in Troy, N.Y. for the commemoration.

Marowitz served as a reconnaissance scout with the 222nd Infantry Regimental headquarters, leading the division to Dachau on the day of its liberation.

Williams served with Company G of the division's 242nd Infantry Regiment as a mortarman through the spring of 1945. He toured the concentration camp during occupation duties with the division after the war ended.

The traveling exhibit, "Names Instead of Numbers" displays a selection of biographies from the Dachau Remembrance Book Project. The exhibit features photographs and brief narratives from the lives of former prisoners of Dachau Concentration Camp.

The Remembrance Book project was founded in Europe in 1999 with the help of a number of local organizations. The program has collated over 130 biographies in its short history, all of which have been written by volunteers.

More information about the exhibit can be found at www.gedaechtnisbuch.de/namen-statt-nummern/english/index-engl.html.

The exhibit will be open to the public at the Military Museum through May 1st. It then travels to the Brookdale Community College Center for World War II Studies and Conflict Resolution in northern New Jersey from May 8-22. The Virginia Holocaust Museum will then display the exhibit in June. The exhibit is then expected to travel to Oklahoma City, Okla. during the annual reunion of the 42nd Infantry Division Veterans Memorial Foundation.

The New York State Military Museum houses over 10,000 artifacts dating from the Revolutionary War to the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that relate to New York State's military forces, the state's military history and the contributions of New York's veterans. The artifacts include uniforms, weapons, artillery pieces, and art. A significant portion of the museum's collection is from the Civil War.

The library and archive holdings in the Veterans Research Center include a 2000 volume library of military and New York State history, over 6,000 photographs, unit history files, broadsides, scrapbooks, letters and maps.

The museum, at 61 Lake Avenue in Saratoga Springs, is open Tuesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., except Sundays when the museum opens at noon.

News media representatives can arrange to speak about the temporary exhibit and the Military Museum with the New York National Guard's Director of Military History, Mr. Michael Aikey at (518) 581-5101.

For interest in the New York Army National Guard's role in the liberation of Dachau and the effort to bring the "Names Instead of Numbers" exhibit to the United States this spring, contact Lt. Col. Richard Goldenberg, 42nd Infantry Division Public Affairs Officer at (518) 786-6150 or 727-7314.

Posted Monday April 25, 2011 at 03:24 pm by New York State Division of Military & Naval Affairs
Last Updated Thursday April 28, 2011 at 03:22 pm