Two Catholic elementary schools in the Diocese of Camden were recently visited by Holocaust survivors.
Joseph Komito, 85, shared his experiences with students at St. Joseph’s Elementary School in Hammonton on Wednesday, March 30.
Komito was born in Mielec, Poland, the third of eight siblings. Just before he turned 13 in 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Separated from his parents and siblings, whom he never saw again, Komito was in 13 different camps before he was liberated. He left for the United States in 1947.
First living with relatives in Chicago and New York, Komito visited his aunt in Pine Hill and eventually settled in South Jersey, getting married and working for several construction companies before starting his small home-building business.
On April 14, eighth-grade students at John Paul II Regional School in Stratford, through a distance-learning program provided by Verizon Portal and the Goodwin Holocaust Museum and Education Center of Cherry Hill, visited with Holocaust survivor Ellen Litman and Bill McCool of the U.S. Armed Forces, who was among those who liberated the camps.
For more than an hour, Litman spoke about her experience, which included climbing through the Swiss Alps for three days. McCool also shared stories.
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