The first Schuylkill County men to bomb Berlin - honored with war bonds | 1944 In August 1944, four Schuylkill County airmen gathered at the Pottsville Republican office to collect $50 war bonds for being the first county sons to fly over Berlin. One mother accepted on her son's behalf. Read more.
In the spring of 1933, Rabbi Louis Levitsky of Wilkes-Barre stood before a women’s club and said what much of the world wasn’t ready to hear. Across the Coal Region, Jewish communities were already organizing, writing, and raising money — while the rest of the world looked away. Read my latest for RealClear Pennsylvania.
On June 6, 1944, as Allied troops stormed ashore at Normandy, women in Scranton, PA gathered at St. Peter's Cathedral to pray. This photograph from the Scranton Tribune captures that moment — the Coal Region holding its breath on the "longest day." Read the story.
“In a democracy we are not all of the same mind, but we are all of the same purpose.” In 1939, as authoritarian regimes reshaped education across Europe, a rabbi in Pennsylvania’s Coal Region offered a different vision rooted in independent thought and cooperation. His words reveal how Americans understood democracy on the eve of World War II. Read the Full Story.
A walk through Vienna, Austria became something else entirely when small brass markers in the pavement stopped me cold. This reflection traces my first encounter with Stolpersteine, memorials to Holocaust victims placed where they once lived. Read the Full Story.
In April 1944, a B-17 named Banshee was shot down over Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia, sending Shenandoah, PA native Chester Majewski plunging 20,000 feet into enemy territory. What followed was a desperate escape through mountains, hunger, and fear. His hometown newspaper captured the story that he barely wanted to tell. Read the Full Story.
The new US-Israeli air war reached the edges of one of Iran’s most important historic sites - the Golestan Palace. These moments raises a larger question about what happens when modern conflict collides with the past. This episode explores the long struggle to protect cultural heritage in wartime and why those battles still matter today. Listen to the Full Story.
In 1943, Charles H. King left Pottsville to fight for democracy. Instead, he found segregation, humiliation, and hard truths about race in the U.S. Navy. His memoir captures the moment he realized who he was in a divided America, and why that awakening shaped his life. Read the full story.
In February 1945, a Schuylkill County anti-aircraft gunner wrote home from France, describing daily life near the front as the war neared its end. His letter offers a view of war-time service far from home. Read the full story.
On Christmas Day, my family walked Fairview Cemetery near my childhood home. Among familiar names, I stopped at Harold E. Malick’s grave. A paratrooper with the 101st Airborne, he survived Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge. I always pause there. Read the full story.