Photo Caption: Carl Adickman (left) & Maurice Rosenberg (right) at a French Hunting Lodge near our bivouac, south of Rozay-en-Brie

Maurice Rosenberg was born on Sept. 3, 1919, in Oswego, New York. He volunteered for the Army in 1941 and served in Europe until 1945, assigned to a variety of duties. He was part of the military effort to free millions of slave laborers from Italy, Yugoslavia, Belgium, France, and Poland. After the war, he was a legal scholar dedicated to promoting judicial reform in the United States. He served as a faculty member at Columbia’s School of Law for 39 years. He died on August 25, 1995. 

Read Maurice Rosenberg’s obituary:          http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol21/vol21_iss1/record2101.34.html 

Maurice’s son, Dr. David Rosenberg, is a longtime Pittsburgh resident and historian. David generously shared these entries from the journal his father kept during liberation. David is mentioned on the 6th page as having taken his first steps. 

These entries from early 1945 give a sense of the atmosphere in the final months of World War II. Maurice mentions himself and another soldier taking bets on when the war will end in Europe: 

“Byrnes says it’ll be in March. I’m committing myself that the end will come (except for the post-hostilities fighting) by the 2nd week in June.” Germany surrendered unconditionally on May 8, 1945.

Journal Scans: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GYqDBW2JxAKmla-K2I7V_wseoI1DmtT3/view?usp=sharing 

Transcription: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1diSMWm9BM_5mh2UTf_m0oCBRAIff8-7hd7_XBB2MBwc/edit?usp=sharing