It cannot happen very often that a unit of the U.S. Army receives a book of poetry as a gift. But that is what happened this past Nov. 7 at a farewell dinner for the 84th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army Reserves, which had been headquartered in Milwaukee.
This unit, formed in 1917, is being consolidated with another unit based in Fort Knox, Kentucky. However, the unit’s nickname, “Railsplitter,” and its insignia, an image of an axe-head cleaving a log, will be preserved and maintained.
Among the events at the dinner were remarks by a civilian, Martha Kranzthor-Osvat, 85. She read from her recently published book of “New and Selected Poems,” much of which she wrote for, and all of which she dedicated to, the 84th Division for this occasion.
Why would she do this and why would the unit officers allow it? Because the biography of this woman and the history of this unit are powerfully connected.
As World War II was winding down in April 1945, the 84th liberated two German Nazi forced labor camps.
One of them was Salzwedel, where the soldiers found a group of Jewish women that had been transported there from Auschwitz. Among them were Martha and her mother, Alice Fulop Kranzthor.
After the war, Martha married George Osvat and in the early 1960s she, her husband, their two daughters and her mother emigrated from their native Romania and established themselves in Milwaukee.
One day in 1980, Kranzthor-Osvat and her mother were driving along Silver Spring Dr. when they noticed a building with the “Railsplitter” logo on it. It was the headquarters of the 84th, now an Army reserve unit.
“We wanted to thank them for our lives,” Kranzthor-Osvat said in an interview on Jan. 13. So she and her mother sought to arrange a visit.
The division’s commander then was General Robert Erffmeyer, who is now retired and in ill health.
“A different kind of person would have blown them off,” said Erffmeyer’s daughter, Wendy Braatz, in a telephone interview on Jan. 14. But her father “is a soldier of the best kind there is. He dearly loves his country, and he knows everything about history.”
“He fully understood what the division did in World War II,” and to have these people “walk out of history” made “an immediate connection between them,” she said. He understood the importance of telling their story, Braatz said.
Kranzthor-Osvat and her mother became honorary members of the 84th Infantry Division Railsplitters Society, and they participated in many unit events. When her mother died in 1983, members of the 84th’s band played “Taps” at her funeral.
But the story of the poetry doesn’t end there. In fact, Krantzthor-Osvat, a former dancer and choreographer who became a psychotherapist, didn’t begin to write poetry until after her husband died in 1992.
“I did not know what to do with myself,” Krantzthor-Osvat explained. She took some adult education classes, including workshops in poetry writing.
Though English is not her native language, it is one of the six languages she speaks fluently, and, as she explained, she had already begun studying English when she was 10 years old. Her teachers encouraged her and helped her get published.
She said that Holocaust-survivor, author and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Elie Wiesel during one of his speaking appearances in Milwaukee read some of her work and also encouraged her to keep writing.
Some of her poems were published in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Cream City Review and other publications. Her first book of poetry, “Pulse of the Vineyards,” came out in 1997.
That first book did not contain many poems about her Holocaust experiences. The new one includes a section devoted to “Holocaust Poems.”
The book also includes some of her previous poetry because “I needed some things that were not so gloomy,” she said. She self-published the book via the firm Lulu Inc., in order to have it available in time for the 84th’s farewell dinner.
And she wrote a poem that pays direct tribute to the 84th Division by recalling the moment she first saw them as they liberated the camp: “Oh, Archangels on earth/ Masquerading as soldiers!”
The book can be purchased through the Lulu Inc. Web site, www.lulu.com/product/paperback/new-selected-poems/5579193.
Formerly op-ed editor, Leon Cohen has written for The Chronicle for more than 25 years.
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