Ross’ book showed his incredible life, offered an incredible warning
It’s not often I’ll come across a book that grabs me, literally forcing me to read, page after page until it’s finished.
Well, this past weekend the Amazon truck arrived at my door and delivered a book called, “From Broken Glass,” written by Steve Ross, the founder of the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston. The story was so incredibly compelling that I read it cover to cover in one day.
Sadly, Ross died this past February. Ross came to the shores of the United States in 1949 after World War II. When he arrived, his name was Szmulek Rozental. Szmulek was 18-years-old, from Lodz, Poland, Jewish and had survived six years of living in 10 Nazi concentration camps until his liberation from Dachau by the Americans on April 29, 1945. He found his way to Boston with the horrors of his past, an optimism for the future and a self-motivation to give back and never forget.
After experiencing the worst of what humans can do to other human beings, Szmulek Rozental adopted his new Americanized name, Steve Ross, as he did his new country. Ross was eventually drafted into the U.S. Army, serving in the Korean War and later used the G.I. Bill to attend Goddard College in Vermont and subsequently Boston University where he earned a master’s in psychology. Ross became a psychologist and worked first as a truant officer, embarking on a career with Boston’s Department of Com
Steve Ross, 63, of Boston, a prisoner at the Dachau concentration camp is shown in this 1995 file photo. On the wall behind him is a photo of him which was retrieved from the Nazi files at Dachau. He holds over his shoulder an American flag given to him by the first American soldiers who entered the camp in April 1945.
munity Schools.
Ross spent his life working with inner city kids in the toughest neighborhoods in Boston. He changed lives and provided hope where there had not been any hope at all.
His father had instilled in him that the path to a better life was through education, so he made sure kids in Boston who had little chance at attending college, made it successfully into college. He shared his story of horrors experienced at the hands of the Nazis and used it to motivate and illustrate that no matter how tough a deal you had been dealt, that there was still opportunity to rise above it all and change your life for the better.
Szmulek Rozental experienced the worst in life as a boy.
He lost his family, except for his brother. His childhood was a life full of mental and physical torture in Nazi concentration camps. Szmulek was met with heartbreak, disease, cruelty, abuse, starvation and was under the constant threat of death. When the Americans liberated Dachau, he walked aimlessly out of the camp like a zombie on the brink of death. He watched American troops pass him by until a tank rolled up to his location. Out of the tank came an American soldier who fed Szmulek, wrapped his arm around him and left him with an American flag.
Ross gained a lifetime reputation for getting things done. Upon meeting Ray Flynn, then mayor of Boston he requested that a memorial of the Holocaust be erected, which eventually became the New England Holocaust Memorial which sits near Faneuil Hall and across from Boston City Hall.
As Ross grew older, he became more concerned with what he saw in the United States. His book serves as a warning as to what could happen in this country if we allow books to be burned, monuments to be torn down, citizens to be disarmed, the police to become neutralized and the mobs to control the streets. Ross’s life and story serve as a warning that all that we have fought for could be easily lost and that we must never forget history.