Parise tells kids about WWII

“I’m no hero. I was one of thirteen-and-a-half million soldiers that went to fight. The heroes are there, they never came home, they are still there, buried.” —Cedarhurst Mayor Andrew Parise

Just before the 70th anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces landed in Europe to defeat the Nazis, a class of high school students trooped from Brooklyn to Cedarhurst Town Hall to meet the village’s 90-year-old World War II veteran mayor, Andrew Parise.

Parise sat at a table spread with clippings, copies of a map and booklets of his war history. World War II artifacts from his time in Europe were arrayed in front of him — a bayonet from an M1 rifle, a pin from a hand grenade, various Nazi knives and a framed case of Nazi paraphernalia. Another framed case held Parise’s own medals from his time in the U.S. Army.

The visitors accompanied their World History Regents teacher, The Jewish Star’s Bookworm columnist, Alan Jay Gerber, from Yeshiva Derech HaTorah in Brooklyn.

Rabbi Yaakov Feitman of Kehillas Bais Yehudah Tzvi in Cedarhurst and Rebbitzen Cynthia Zalinsky, executive director of the Jewish Community Council of Queens joined the class to thank Parise.

Rabbi Feitman said his father was at Buchenwald, a camp liberated by Parise’s unit. He noted that at liberation, American soldiers cried when they saw that the concentration camp prisoners were “walking skeletons,” some of whom subsequently died after eating food they couldn’t yet digest; others were killed by anti-Semites even after liberation. The prisoners acknowledged that the soldiers were “sent by G-d to save them” and “made a bracha (blessing) on the liberators.”

“I am here because he (Parise) was there,” said Rabbi Feitman, his voice choked with emotion. “I wish him (to continue) his long productive life and continue to be our mayor to 120 years.”

“They almost succeeded in wiping out the Jews,” said Zalinsky, blinking back tears, as she thanked Mayor Parise. As a result of saving her father, Parise would see four generations, with Zalinsky, her son and his children in the room. She told the students, “You need to bear witness [and say] I met someone who freed the Jews in Buchenwald.”