Paul Kessler: The Upstander Whisperer

Paul Ungerleider Kessler was born in September 1939 in Vranov nad Topľou, Czechoslovakia (today Slovakia), a small village near the Hungarian border. One of his earliest memories is of hiding under his bed when the Nazis came to take Jews away.

His mother evaded capture by constantly staying one step ahead of the Nazis, sometimes sleeping rough in surrounding forests.

 

Paul's family moved to the United States in 1950. He served in the US army in 1960, his final post being in Camp Wolters in Mineral Wells.

 

Rotarian and Rotary Peace Fellow Eva Geloğulları had a chance encounter with Paul on 11/11/2011 in Dallas in a coffee shop not far from the Dallas Holocaust Museum. Years later she recalled this encounter in an interview she did with Paul for the 'Times of Israel'. 

 

Follow this link to view the full interview with Paul Kessler entitled Paul Kessler: The Upstander Whisperer.
 

In reply to Eva's request to us to publish this article on our home page, Jim C Quick, our Peace Fellowship chair wrote:

 

"Thank you for your continued excellent work in peace building, and in ‘remembering,’ a process through which we learn and grown. Your interview with Paul is outstanding, and so critical at this time in world history to remember Paul’s lessons from the mid-twentieth century.
 

May we never forget!

Rotary is magical!

Jim C".