Community Corner

After Nearly 70 Years, Holocaust Survivor Finds Soldier Who Liberated Her Living in Nearby Union

The 90 year old says she was forced to dig her father's own grave.

Marcia Cruzman, 90, spent a lifetime hoping to thank the American soldiers who liberated the concentration camp where she spent five years during World War II, withering to 68 pounds by the time she was freed at 18 years old.

She ended up living in New Jersey and speaking to school groups about the Holocaust experience and discovered while reading the paper recently that a former soldier who had helped liberate concentration camps was living nearby, according to a report Wednesday on NBC Nightly News.

"I nearly fainted," she said in the report of discovering Joseph Barbella, who served in the U.S. 11th Armory Division and lived in Union Township.

When asked what she said upon meeting Barbella, Cruzman said, "I love you. Thank you for liberating us."



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