John M. Rosenberg
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John Rosenberg (born 1931), is a Holocaust survivor, longtime civil and human rights activist, former attorney in the Civil Rights Division and founder of the Appalachian Research and Defense fund in Prestonsburg, Kentucky.
Rosenberg was born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1931. On November 9, 1938, Kristallnacht, seven-year-old Rosenberg and his parents were pulled from their home by Nazis and stood in the court yard of the adjacent synagogue, where they were forced to watch the holy scriptures burned and the building blown up.[1] His father was arrested the next day and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp for eleven days but was released later due to local government intervention. For a year afterward, Rosenberg stayed with his family in an internment camp in Rotterdam, Holland before leaving for America in February 1940. Upon arrival, Rosenberg and his parents moved in with his mother's sister's family in New York. His father had difficulty finding employment in the city, so the family moved to South Carolina where he worked as a janitor in a textile mill.[1]
Rosenberg was the first in his family attend college, and while there, he joined the ROTC program. As a two-year commitment in a branch of the military was required after graduation, he decided to join the Air Force. After the Air Force, Rosenberg went to Law School at the University of North Carolina in 1959. During this time the civil rights movement was gaining momentum, and by the end of his studies in 1962, he obtained work through the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. Working there provided him with a strong foundation for arguing court cases later in life, and it was also where he met his wife, Jean.[1]
Rosenberg and his wife left the Civil Rights Division in 1970 and almost immediately were contacted by former colleague Terry Lenzner inquiring about his interest in joining an organization that would address issues surrounding poverty in Appalachia. The evolving organization became the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund, otherwise known as AppalReD.[2]
Rosenberg worked as the Director of AppalReD for twenty-eight years before retiring,[3] but retirement did not end his career as a human rights activist. He continued to speak publicly about the Holocaust and has written about his time working for the Civil Rights Division and AppalReD.
Growing Up in the South
Living in the more rural south provided a different socialization for Rosenberg than for Holocaust survivors who remained in major metropolitan areas: without a large Jewish community with similar experiences, his upbringing was somewhat different from other survivors. However, Rosenberg claimed that his Jewish identity and adherence to Judaism was never a hindrance to his socialization and he was able to adapt with relative ease to his largely Christian community.[1]
Rosenberg understood that his family was different from those in the congregations where his father acted as rabbi. Rosenberg recollected that many families were well-to-do and traveled frequently and his parents were not afforded such means. Adding to this disconnect was their status as Holocaust survivors and immigrants in contrast to the largely American-born Jews in the congregations. So, while Rosenberg was friendly with the people who attended the same congregation, there was a certain barrier to a mutual understanding of each other. How experiences like Rosenberg's inform identity and community in Appalachia is further explored in “This is Home Now: Kentucky’s Holocaust Survivors Speak,” a collection of interviews compiled by Arwen Donahue.[1]
He contends that his experience with the persecution of Jewish people during WWII aided development of his passion for civil and human rights activism. Witnessing similar prejudice in the form of segregationist policies was particularly bothersome to Rosenberg. A memory he cited as transformative to his activist mindset occurred while on a train home with an Air Force friend who had traveled with him from England where they were stationed. Upon arrival in Washington, D.C., his friend, an African American, stood up and explained to Rosenberg that he needed to move to a segregated car for Black passengers or they would encounter trouble as they moved farther south.[1] He eventually saw that becoming an attorney and litigating cases involving discrimination would aid his civil rights activism.[4]