Samuel D. Kassow ’66
“When I arrived at Trinity as a teacher, I was 25; I was not that much older than the students,” says Samuel D. Kassow ’66, Charles H. Northam Professor of History, who just completed his 50th year on Trinity’s faculty and is the college’s longest-serving current faculty member. “I’ve taught literally thousands of students. It’s been very gratifying. Occasionally I’ll hear from someone that they’ve never forgotten something I said, or that one of my classes was a catalyst that made them choose a career in academia. And now I’ll sometimes hear, ‘You taught my mom or my dad.’ ”
Kassow is an internationally recognized scholar of Russian and Soviet history, modern European history, and the history of Ashkenazi Jewry. He recently saw one of his books adapted into the critically acclaimed documentary Who Will Write Our History. His Trinity courses include “World War II,” “The Third Reich,” and “The Holocaust.”
For Kassow, these subjects are personal. “I was born in Europe in a displaced persons camp. My parents were Holocaust survivors in Poland,” he says. “I knew that history mattered. You might say that in my house there was too much history.” When he came to Trinity on a full scholarship, an initial interest in premed gave way to a growing passion for Russian history, which Kassow pursued in graduate school.
A chance meeting with the head of Trinity’s History Department in London led him to join the faculty back at his alma mater, where he has stayed for his entire teaching career. “I love to tell stories,” Kassow says. “I try to make history come alive. I get up in the morning still looking forward to teaching. At the same time, Trinity has given me freedom to do my own work, like writing or being a visiting professor elsewhere.”
On campus, Kassow is involved with services and celebrations at Trinity Hillel, where his wife, Lisa Pleskow Kassow, was director from 2001 until she retired this year. He has mentored students in the History Department and in the multidisciplinary Jewish Studies Program and has led student travel experiences to Russia and Poland. “I think I’ll teach for a couple more years,” Kassow says. “I hope I encourage students to be empathetic and to take history seriously. History doesn’t give you answers, but the study of history encourages you to ask questions, which is always very good.”
For more on Kassow and his time at Trinity, please visit:
http://commons.trincoll.edu/reporter-spring2015/features/celebrating-jewish-history-in-poland/
https://www.trincoll.edu/asking-historys-big-questions/
Editor’s note: “Trinity Treasure” highlights a person, place, or thing on campus that is just what the name implies: a Trinity treasure. Do you have an idea for what to showcase? Please send your suggestions to sonya.adams@trincoll.edu.