“Balm in Gilead: A Story From the War” with author, Ambassador John L. Withers II and Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler

Classrooms Without Borders, in partnership with Rodef Shalom Congregation and the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, is honored to welcome Ambassador John L. Withers II and survivor Howard Chandler as they discuss a moving tale of friendships forged between survivors and rescuers in the days after the war. Pee Wee and Salomon were wonderful men. At first, the wonder of them appeared to be their survival—of Dachau, I thought, but of so much else as it turns out. Survival was a testament to courage and endurance of a kind I could barely imagine. But as I grew to know them better, I realized that the true wonder was the people they were. Sweet-tempered, kindly, gentle. How could that be? That was the true wonder. All the hostility, hatred, and evil they encountered without letting it deform them or deflect them from becoming the kind of people they wanted to be. They didn’t become hateful or hostile in return. They didn’t become bitter or apathetic. Quite the contrary. That was something I’ve kept with me all my life: that it is possible for someone—me, anyone—to overcome the obstacles in his path without losing himself, and face prejudice without becoming prejudiced in return. —John L. Withers, May 2001

In May 1945, as World War II ended, an all-black U.S. Army truck company, including Lieutenant John L. Withers of Greensboro, North Carolina, rushed emergency supplies to an unknown German town. Long victims of harsh racial abuse, the soldiers were nonetheless shocked at the horrors they witnessed when the “town” turned out to be the Dachau concentration camp. They were further shocked, days later, when two destitute young Jews, former Dachau inmates, appeared at their encampment and pleaded for help. Housing non-military personnel was strictly forbidden, but the soldiers, with their lieutenant’s endorsement, sheltered the boys nevertheless.

After the war, as he raised a family and launched a career in government, Withers always remembered the Jewish boys and told of the year they hid out in his unit, working alongside and forging close friendships with his soldiers. He himself became their surrogate parent, guiding them towards understanding that, however horrid the past, the future yet held hope. When he went home in 1947, the boys—fondly nicknamed Pee Wee and Salomon by the troops—were ready to start life anew. Although they eventually lost touch, Withers’ memory of his friends never faded. What, he wondered, had become of them? Would he ever see them again?

Balm in Gilead traces John L. Withers II’s prolonged search for the roots of his father’s story—a search that one day, miraculously, ended with the old friends finding each other again.

Ambassador John L. Withers II

Born on November 1, 1948, in High Point, North Carolina, Ambassador John L. Withers II spent much of his childhood abroad with his Foreign Service parents. Their assignments included Laos, Thailand, Burma, Korea, Ethiopia, Kenya, and India. On returning to America, he earned a B.A. from Harvard in 1970; a Masters in East Asian Studies at McGill in 1975; and a Ph.D. in the History of Modern China from Yale in 1983. As part of his doctoral studies, he conducted dissertation research at Nanjing University in China in 1980-81. After himself joining the Foreign Service in 1984, Withers served in the Netherlands, Nigeria, Russia (just as communism fell), Latvia, Slovenia, and Albania (as Ambassador), as well as such domestic assignments as Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State and Director of the Operations Center. For his work in support of Albanian democracy, the Albanian city of Vlora named him an honorary citizen as it marked the 100th anniverary of the country’s independence in 2012. Three years later, Albania’s capital, Tirana, awarded him the keys to the city. Now retired, Withers and his wife, Maryruth Coleman, also a senior Foreign Service officer, live in Potomac, Maryland.

Howard Chandler

Howard Chandler was born in December 1928, in Weirzbnik, Poland. He was the middle child of four siblings; an older sister, and two younger brothers. At the onset of the war, Howard was almost eleven years old, finishing grade three, and remembers the rounding up and kidnapping of Jews for forced labor camps and the constant search of houses. Between 1942-1944, he was a prisoner in Starachowice Labour Camp and then sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald and was liberated from Theresienstadt in 1945. Only he and one of his brothers survived. In 1947, he was able to be included in a group to go to Canada, where he found his mothers’ two sisters, and lived with another sister. Howard married Elsa and together they had four children. Howard, is an integral member of Classrooms Without Borders’ Poland Personally Travel Study Seminar. He is a mentor and friend of hundreds of CWB teachers and students who had the privilege to travel and learn with him.

Learn more about Howard’s testimony and story of survival using our Journey with Howard Chandler mobile app!