(PDF) (DOC) (JPG)June 20, 2016

(MAHWAH, NJ) – On Thursday, March 24, Mr. Alan Moskin of Nanuet, New York spoke to a group of students and community members about his experiences of participating in the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp as a young. G.I. The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies sponsored the event.

Mr. Moskin recounted how on May 4, 1945 as a member of the 66th infantry, 71st Division of the U.S. 3rd Army (under the command of General George Patton) he helped free the prisoners the Gunskirchen Concentration Camp in Austria, a sub-camp of Mauthausen. Having fought his way across France and Germany before reaching Austria, Moskin was along the way promoted to Staff Sergeant.

What he experienced on that fateful day near the end of World War II, he would never forget. The astonished look on on some of the Jewish inmates of the camp, when they learned he was a Jew, would never leave him. After the war ended, Mr. Moskin remained in Europe until June 1946 as a member of the U.S. Army of Occupation.

Alan Moskin was born in Englewood, New Jersey on May 30, 1926. He attended Syracuse University both before and after his military service in World War II and graduated in May 1948. He then attended New York University Law School, graduating with a J.D. degree in June 1951. He practiced law as a civil trial attorney in New Jersey for over 20 years and subsequently worked in the private business sector until he retired in 1991. Mr. Moskin has spoken to students in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, Florida, Arkansas and elsewhere about his experiences as an infantry combat soldier and a concentration camp liberator.

Mr. Moskin was also the featured speaker at the Center’s joint Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) program with Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom in Mahwah on May 4th.

On both occasions Mr. Moskin’s presentations gave rise to lively discussions that also touched on current issues of intolerance and bigotry

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