World War II Veterans Honored on ‘Spirit of ’45 Day’ at World War II Memorial (photos)
• September 9, 2013

World War II veterans gathered on Aug. 11 at the World War II Memorial in Washington D.C. on “Spirit of ’45 Day,” a national day of remembrance that honors the men and women who were the “ordinary heroes” of the World War II generation. The ceremony is the first of more than 100 similar observances across the country, serving as a clarion call for a renewed spirit of civic engagement, volunteerism, service to community and country and national unity, This year’s ceremony at the memorial honored the late Senators Daniel Inouye and Frank Lautenberg, the last WW II veterans to serve in the U.S. Congress.

It has been 68 years since the end of that conflict and the number of living veterans is sadly diminishing. Some notable individuals attending this gathering included the following individuals:

US Air Force Major Jesse M. Baltazar was among the 75,000 Americans and Filipino troops, who surrendered after being overwhelmed when the Japanese on April 9, 1942, invaded Bataan, 300 miles north of Manila. They were force-marched 90 miles north to a prison camp on a dusty road without food or water. Thousands died before reaching the prison camp.

Jerry Wolf was 18 when the B-17 he was flying over Germany was shot down in May 1944. A member of the 390th Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force, Wolf spent 11 months in captivity.

Terry Tshima was a member of the most decorated 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team of the United States Army composed almost entirely of Japanese Americans.

World War II fighter pilot Jerry Yellin enlisted in the Army Air Corps on Feb. 15, 1942, his 18th birthday. He was in combat in the Pacific Theater and Iwo Jima with the 78th Fighter Squadron and participated in the first land based fighter mission over Japan on April 7, 1945 and the last mission of the war on August 14, 1945. Yellin was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with an Oak Leaf cluster and the Air Medal with four Oak Leaf clusters. He was discharged a Captain in December 1945.

Rear Admiral (Ret.) Bill Thompson, former Naval Chief of Public Information and a founder of the U.S. Navy Memorial.

Keynote speaker General Frederick J. (Fritz) Kroesen, Jr fought in World War II with the 254th Infantry Regiment of the 63rd Infantry Division. Also the veteran of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, he has the rare distinction of having been awarded the Combat Infantry Badge in three conflicts. He went on to earn the rank of 4-star general.

Ken Inouye represented his late father Senator and Congressional Medal of Honor winner Dan Inouye.

Also on hand were three “Rosie the Riveters” representing the American women who worked in factories during World War II, many of whom produced munitions and war supplies. These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers who were in the military.

View our photos of the ‘Spirit of ’45’ ceremony at the World War II Memorial by clicking on the photo icons below.
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50th Anniversary Celebration of ‘I Have A Dream’ on the Mall in Pictures
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President Obama was joined by former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, a bevy of civil rights & labor leaders, and members of the entertainment industry to pay homage to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Wednesday, August 28, the 50th Anniversary of his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The event took place at the Lincoln Memorial before a crowd estimated at close to 100,000.

View our photos of the event by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="154248,154172,154168,154163,154159,154155,154151,154145,154141,154137,154132,154128,154124,154255,154177,154180,154185,154243,154238,154234,154230,154224,154219,154215,154210,154206,154202,154198,154194,154189,154116,154252,154106,154022,154046,154032,154036,154001,153997,153993,153988,153983,153977,154011,154017,154006,154027,154052,154057,154102,154120,154111,154088,154258,154078,154094,154083,154073,154098,154068,154063,154041,101436" nav="thumbs"]

Thousands Gather for 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington (photos)
• August 29, 2013

Tens of thousands gathered on the National Mall Aug. 24 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 March on Washington. The event was sponsored by the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. Following remarks from civil rights and labor leaders, rally-goers marched east from the Lincoln Memorial to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. From there, the crowd proceeded to the Washington Memorial before dispersing.

The general consensus that much more work still needs to be done in the arena of civil rights found expression in the many colorful signs, banners and flags. View our photos from the rally and march by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="154546,154482,154478,154473,154549,154465,154459,154451,154446,154442,154454,154487,154492,154541,154536,154532,154527,154522,154518,154512,154507,154501,154497,154468,154433,154428,154370,154366,154362,154374,154353,154348,154343,154337,154357,154438,154378,154382,154423,154420,154416,154411,154406,154403,154399,154395,154391,154387,101434" nav="thumbs"]

U.S. Postal Service Launches new 1963 March on Washington Forever Stamp at Newseum Ceremony (photos)
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To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the U.S. Postal Service unveiled a new “forever” stamp at the Newseum Aug. 23. The stamp completes a series of three that honor the struggle for civil rights in the United States. The latest stamp is an impressionistic depiction of a diverse group of protesters bearing signs calling for equal rights and jobs with the Washington Monument in the background. The program, hosted by U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr., featured Rep. John Lewis and deputy postmaster general Ronald Stroman, who jointly dedicated the stamp. In 1963, Lewis was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and an organizer of the march. Actress Gabrielle Union was on hand and Joe Coleman of the Platters performed.

View our photos of the ceremony at the Newseum by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="101435,154289,154294,154299,154303,154306,154310,154314,154319,154285,154281,154265,154260,154328,154335,154333,154268,154272,154277,154323" nav="thumbs"]

Giant Plant Finally Blooms at US Botanic Garden (photos)
• July 23, 2013

After a week long vigil, it finally happened. I am not here referring to a special birthday in the U.K. but to a very rare life cycle event much closer to home – the blooming of the 8 foot high tropical titan arum plant. On Monday, July 22, the U.S. Botanic Garden at 101 Maryland Ave. NW in Washington temporarily extended its visiting hours to 8 PM to accommodate the thousands of visitors who at times had to line up around the block to witness this rare event. Gawkers could also watch from home via a special live feed that has already drawn over a half million views.

This giant of plants, which also goes by its scientific name ‘amorphophallus titanum’, is native to the Indonesian rain forests. It has the largest unbranched inflorescence in the world. (An inflorescence is a floral structure composed of many smaller individual flowers.) Due to its odor which resembles the smell of a rotting animal, it is also known as the corpse flower. In the wild, the pungent odor attracts carrion-eating beetles and flesh flies that pollinate it. The strong smell, which peaks at the early stages of flowering, was largely gone by the Monday morning visitors rush. The corm is the largest known, often exceeding 100 pounds. The last such event at the Botanic Gardens took place in 2007, though that was a different titan arum. This plant, which started to flower on Sunday night, will only bloom for 24 to 48 hours and then will collapse quickly. As the plant has a very irregular blooming cycle, no one can say for sure when the natural spectacle will take place again. Titan arum is becoming uncommon in the wild as native habitats have diminished due to illegal logging and land conversion for agricultural purposes.

View our photos of the plant both before and after its grand opening by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="101402,154347,154342,154338,154332,154326,154321,154316,154311,154304,154298,154293,154287,154358,154282,154361,154276,154365,154352" nav="thumbs"]

Smithsonian Folklife Festival Celebrates Hungarian Heritage (photos)
• July 18, 2013

Thousands of visitors attended the first half of the 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall between June 26 and 30. Three programs are featured in the festival: “Hungarian Heritage: Roots to Revival,” “One World, Many Voices: Endangered Languages and Cultural Heritage” and “The Will to Adorn.” The Festival picks up again on July 3 and runs through July 7. Attendees were treated to a wide variety of singing, music, dance, craft and cooking demonstrations, lectures and food from around the world.

View our photos from the first half of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="101368,153066,153071,153076,153081,153086,153093,153100,153105,153109,153114,153120,153125,153130,153135,153139,153061,153055,153049,153157,152985,153154,152991,153150,152996,153002,153007,153012,153017,153023,153028,153034,153039,153044,153145" nav="thumbs"]

‘Never Again’: Holocaust Museum’s 20th Anniversary Tribute to Survivors, Veterans
• July 11, 2013

The philosopher George Santayana penned the now famous words: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Heeding that warning, nearly 1,000 survivors of the Nazi Holocaust as well as veterans of World War II joined former President Bill Clinton and Nobel Peace laureate Elie Wiesel on April 29 to mark the 20th anniversary of the opening of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The museum’s paramount mission is to preserve the memory of the millions who perished at the hands of Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler — and by doing so helping assure that it will never happen again. This month marks the 68th anniversary of Hitler’s death and the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany, thus ending World War II in Europe. Organizers of the event decided not to wait for a 25th commemoration of the museum’s debut — simply because many of those that experienced the war firsthand may not be alive in 5 or 10 years.

Wiesel told the assembled audience of survivors and supporters that the museum’s purpose is as much to serve future generations as it is for those who lived through the Holocaust. “I say to young people, you are our hope,” he said. “Whatever we do now is not only for the sake of the past but surely also for the sake of the future, and you are our future.” Since opening in 1993 at Wiesel‘s suggestion, the museum has been one of Washington’s most visited sites. More than a third of its 35 million visitors have been schoolchildren.

On the evening before the anniversary ceremony at a dinner, Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, received the museum’s highest honor, the Elie Wiesel Award, on behalf of all World War II veterans. More than 100 of those veterans were in attendance. Many had been soldiers in units that liberated concentration camps.

Bill Clinton warned that the roots of the Holocaust are “alive and well” today.

“I ask you to think about how the historic suffering and slaughter of the Holocaust reflects a human disease that takes different forms — the idea that our differences are more important than our common humanity . . . ,” Clinton said. “Most of us spend 99-and-a-half percent of our time thinking about the half-a-percent of us that is different from everybody else, and that makes us vulnerable to the fever and the sickness that the Nazis gave to the Germans. . . . You know the truth. You have enshrined it here. You must continue to work to give it to all.”

Attendees at the event each received a black carry bag with the words, “Never Again,” emblazoned on the front in large letters. Underneath in smaller letters were the words, “What you do matters.”

You can view several of my photographs from the event by clicking on the photo icons below. These are some of the people you will see.

Survivor Samuel Rosen, age 91, now living in Scranton, Penn., pulled me over to his table to take his photo surrounded by members of what he calls his “new family,” his two sons and their children. Rosen was able to sneak out of Czechoslovakia and across the border into Hungary where he obtained false identification papers that let him pass as a Catholic Polish immigrant. When he returned to his home town after the war, he found it nearly deserted as most of the Jewish population had been wiped out. Rosen lost his entire immediate family — mother, father, six brothers and five sisters.

“I have a story to tell,” said Leo Zisman. Attendees were encouraged to share lunch at designated tables where they might share memories with fellow survivors. I met up with two brothers Leo, age 81, and Berel Zisman, age 83, at a table marked for “Kovno.” The brothers survived in Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, the Warsaw Ghetto, Dachau, Mauthausen and Auschwitz Birkenau. (where Leo spent his bar mitzvah.) and finally a death march. Of the 141 children who went with them to Auscwhitz, only six survived. Twice, Leo had a gun pointed at his head, he said. After the war in 1946, Leo came to the U.S. as a 15 year old with only $5 in his pocket. He went to college and then prospered as a builder and developer in New York City. Berel is a rabbi. Leo is the title character of an award-winning documentary, “The Lion of Judah,” based on his trip back to Poland leading a group of young adults. “There is nobody here,” lamented brother Berel, noting how few others there were at the table. By his own account, many native Lithuanians were complicit in rounding up members of his family and others.

Samuel Bradin, age 83, showed me his tattoo. During the Holocaust, concentration camp prisoners received tattoos only at one location, the Auschwitz concentration camp complex. Bradin now lives in Rockland County, N.Y., a survivor of Aushwitz where he was as a 13 year old, the only member of his immediate family to survive the camp. He was liberated from Bergen Belsen on Jan 17, 1945, and came to the US in 1949. He wrote “God Bless America” on my note pad.

Survivor Henry Flescher, age 89, was born in Vienna, Austria, and initially escaped to France where he was eventually interred in Drancy deportation camp, a place where Jews, Gypsies and others were held before being shipped to the German concentration camps. On the matter of the Vichy French, Flescher simply says, “Petain gave me to Eichmann.” (Phillipe Petain was the head of Vichy France from 1941 and 1944 and convicted of collaboration with the Germans after the war.)

There were the 10 women from Club Nissim of the Boro Park YWHA in Brooklyn, N.Y. This day program for Holocaust survivors was named by its members in recognition of their miraculous survival (Nissim is the Hebrew word for “miracles”). Many were children when rescued from Nazi-occupied Hungary by the courageous actions of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat credited with saving tens of thousands by providing them with protective passports and sheltering them in buildings designated as Swedish territory. (The street outside the event in Washington, D.C., is named for Wallenberg.)

Proudly wearing his veterans cap, Holocaust survivor Paul Argiewicz from Salem Wisconsin displayed his concentration camp number tattooed on his forearm. He was only 11 when the Germans invaded Poland and he was taken to a concentration camp. He was able to convince soldiers he was 18 and could work in a quarry and later as an electrician.

During the war, Argiewicz estimated he was taken to seven different concentration camps, including Buchenwald and Auschwitz. Only he and his sister Lucy survived. His mother, father and another sister died at Auschwitz. His life is also the subject of a book, “Number 176520, the Story of Paul Argiewicz, a Teenage Holocaust Survivor,” by Deanne Joseph Ebner. After surviving against incredible odds, Paul Argiewicz immigrated to the U.S. and served in the military during the Korea War.

Survivor Gigi McKendric, an accomplished artist in metals, plaster, mechanized motion of sculptures and lights, said that the consistent theme that informs her body of work is the belief that no matter how terrible the challenge – the spirit survives.

George Oscar Lee, age 88, opened his book and showed me pictures of himself from his days in the Polish Army and in a displaced persons camp in Bavaria in 1945. He was born, a Jew, in Drohobycz (then Poland) on September 1, 1924. War broke out on his 15th birthday. Believing that the Germans were going to conscript men for labor camps, he and his father ran east, into Russia, where they survived for some time living in the Ural Mountains. Lee then enlisted in the Polish military attached to the Soviet forces and helped liberate Warsaw. At war’s end, he had made it to Berlin. He had no home to return to and came to the U.S. through DP Camp Foehrenwald, where he met his wife and mother of his children.

‘Rona Zinger held a copy of her book with her story, “Smuggled in Potato Sacks.” Zinger was born in the Kovno Ghetto, when such births were “verboten,” according to a German order of July 24, 1942. Rona’s mother was Ronia Rosenthal, the baby rescue activist, who found willing foster parents outside the ghetto for an unknown number of babies within the ghetto. Her father was Shmuel Rosenthal, a teacher in the ghetto, who taught in the Underground School of the Ghetto. In November 1943, the 10-month-old Zinger was drugged so that she would not cry or scream and was carried out by her foster father when he joined Jews going to work. She survived with the help of a foster mother and was re-united with her father in 1949. Her mother had perished.

Henry Greenbaum, age 85, of Bethesda, Md., spent his years 12 through 17 in one camp or another. He was born Chuna Grynbaum in Starachowice, Poland, on April 1, 1928. In 1944, Greenbaum was deported to Auschwitz and incarcerated in the Buna-Monowitz subcamp, where the I.G. Farben Company owned a factory established for the purpose of producing synthetic rubber and fuel. As the Soviet army approached, Greenbaum was evacuated to Flossenbürg, a concentration camp near the Czechoslovakian border. When American forces neared Flossenbürg a few months later, the prisoners were sent toward Dachau on a death march. Greenbaum was liberated at Neunburg vorm Wald on April 25, 1945, by American soldiers from the 11th Armored Division. When liberated, Greenbaum weighed only 75 pounds on a diet of leaves.

Today, Greenbaum serves as a volunteer at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, sharing his story with visitors.

Ludwik Szymanski, M.D., who was hidden as a child in Warsaw, is now director emeritus of psychiatry at the Institute for Community Inclusion. He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Children’s Hospital Boston Division of Developmental Medicine awards ceremony. He was recognized for his more than five decades of commitment to psychiatry and his deep affection for supporting and improving the lives of people with disabilities.

World War II veteran Herman Zeitchik, age 89, of Silver Spring, Md., proudly wore his French Legion of Honor Medal which he earned by landing at Normandy, helping to liberate Paris and holding back Nazis at the Battle of the Bulge. He also helped to liberate starving prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp.

Friends and survivors, Henry Klapholz, age 80, and Jerry Stein, age 84, sit together at Table 158. Henry Klapholz, from New Rochelle, N.Y., escaped Germany a day before the start of the war as a 5-year-old, first to England and then to the U.S. His friend Jerry Stein of Englewood, N.J., is a survivor of Auschwitz’s I.G. Farben factory slave labor complex near Buna where he spent almost a year as a bricklayer. On Jan. 18, 1945, 16-year-old Stein was taken out of Auschwitz and put on a forced death march to the nearby town of Gleiwitz. There, Stein recalls, he was stuffed into an open-air train car along with thousands of other Jewish prisoners and the train was sent off, as the Nazis hunted for another camp in which to house them. It was a full week before the inmates were unloaded at the Dora camp in Nordhausen, Germany. Then, he was liberated by the Russians. Stein bragged of his three children, 14 grandchildren, and 27 great grandchildren. This expanding family is “not done yet,” declared Stein. “So we beat them”.

Reuven Flaum, age 86, was playing soccer on a Sunday in Soviet-occupied Lithuania when the Germans invaded his town. Rather than return home and certain capture, he escaped to join the Soviet army. In 1943, as a teenager, he fought against the Nazi push toward Moscow on the Eastern Front.

One of the more than 100 veterans to attend was Tech. Sgt. Val Dadamio, even now wearing his old uniform. Dadamio was with the 11th Armored Division that liberated Mauthausen Concentration Camp. The 11th Armored Division was recognized as a liberating unit by the U.S. Army’s Center of Military History and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1985.

Ed Carter-Edwards held a photo of himself being greeted by Queen Elizabeth II. A veteran of World War II, Carter-Edwards was the driving force behind the recent CBC special, “Lucky Ones: Allied Airmen and Buchenwald.” He was one of 168 allied flyers, including Canadians like himself, who were shot down over Nazi-occupied Europe and sent to the brutal Buchenwald death camp for three months instead of a prisoner of war camp. They became members of the KLB (initials for “Konzentrationslager Buchenwald”) Club.

Donald R. Shearer, another member of the KLB Club, was a gunner for the 391st Bomb Group, 573rd Bomb Squadron, and flew 46 missions before being shot down in 1944 during a mission over France. Shearer was interrogated and put in solitary confinement before being loaded in a boxcar with other people and sent to the concentration camp at Buchenwald, near Weimar, Germany. Moments before he and his group were about to be shot, they were miraculously transferred from the concentration camp to a POW camp on orders of Luftwaffe Commander Hermann Goering where they sat out the war.

Veteran Donald McCarthy, age 89, saw some of the heaviest fighting in the war as part of the first assault group on Omaha Beach on D-Day. He began to choke up and said: “By seeing this museum, it brings back the horror of what happened… As kids, we didn’t know why we were fighting ’til we got on the beaches… It is so important to remember what this is all about and why there was a WWII in the first place.”

Please view my photos of these remarkable individuals by clicking on the photo icons below. If you haven’t done so already, come to the Holocaust Museum and take along the young people: “What you do matters.”

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Washington Celebrates Independence Day (in photos)
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Thousands turned out in Washington, D.C., to celebrate our nation’s birthday. Some of the main events included a fireworks display over the National Mall, the National Independence Day Parade, a Fife and Drum Corps Performance on Constitution Avenue and a historic reading of the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives. The U.S. Capitol also hosted the nationally televised Capitol Fourth Concert.

View our photos of all these events by clicking on the photo icons below.
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Congressional Women Battle the Press Corps in Softball for Charity (photos)
• July 1, 2013

The Women Members of Congress were defeated by a team composed of the Washington Press Corp (“The Bad News Babes”) by a score of 11-6. The event raised $125,000 for charity on June 26 at Watkins Recreation Center near Capitol Hill. The game was created in 2009 by Florida Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Missouri Republican Jo Ann Emerson to bring colleagues from both sides of the aisle together in the spirit of bipartisanship. The game also raises money and awareness for the Young Survival Coalition, which offers resources, connections and outreach to pre-menopausal women with breast cancer. The Members team was cheered on by Congressional Leaders John Boehner, R-Ohio, Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Steny Hoyer, D-Md. Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” was on hand to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

View our photos of the game by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="101367,152906,152911,152918,152924,152929,152934,152939,152945,152951,152957,152963,152969,152899,152894,152988,152841,152983,152979,152847,152855,152860,152865,152872,152877,152882,152889,152974" nav="thumbs"]

Politicians and Newscasters Mingle at the 69th Annual Radio & TV Congressional Correspondents’ Dinner (photos)
• June 20, 2013

The Radio and Television Correspondents Association held its annual dinner June 5 at the National Building Museum. The high-profile black tie dinner brought together 1,500 journalists, news leaders and lawmakers. View our photos from the entrance to the event on G Street as the guests arrived by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="101320,151289,151294,151300,151305,151311,151316,151322,151328,151283,151277,151271,151346,151240,151342,151246,151339,151253,151258,151265,151333" nav="thumbs"]