Ernst Presseisen, 82, a Temple professor

Ernst L. Presseisen, 82, of Center City, an emeritus professor of history at Temple University and a Holocaust survivor, died of complications of pneumonia Tuesday, Feb. 8, at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

In 1994, Dr. Presseisen spoke about his wartime experiences with an Inquirer reporter and the senior class at Pennsauken High School.

He told them that in April 1945, he was aboard a stopped train full of Jewish prisoners. With the Soviet army approaching, German SS soldiers tried to blow up the train, but the explosives didn't work. In the morning, the prisoners expected to be shot by their SS guards. "We got out of the train, and instead of the SS was a funny-looking soldier with a fur hat. During the night, the Russian army had moved in, and we were free," Dr. Presseisen said.

The passengers settled in a village in eastern Germany. Typhoid killed many, including Dr. Presseisen's parents. A brother had died of the same disease while the family was imprisoned in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp earlier in the war.

Dr. Presseisen and a surviving brother were eventually evacuated by a convoy of African American soldiers and in July 1945 returned to their hometown of Rotterdam, Netherlands.

In 1947, he joined an aunt and uncle in California. Though he had not completed high school and had only a basic knowledge of English, he was admitted to the University of California at Berkeley. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1951 and then earned a doctorate in European and diplomatic history from Harvard University.

Dr. Presseisen began his teaching career at Stanford University. While there, a friend introduced him to his future wife, Barbara Zemboch. He later taught at Northern Illinois University.

From 1966 until 1993, Dr. Presseisen served on the faculty at Temple, where he was chairman of the history department for several years. He was the author of several journal articles and books, most notably Germany and Japan: A Study in Totalitarian Diplomacy, 1933-1941; Before Aggression: Europeans Prepare the Japanese Army, and Amiens and Munich: Comparisons in Appeasement.

In 1972, Dr. Presseisen was a founder of the Philadelphia Jewish Archives, and for many years he was volunteer curator of the collection, now housed at Temple. After he retired from Temple he volunteered in the library at Graduate Hospital and the Rosenbach Museum.

In 2005, Dr. Presseisen traveled to Germany when he was invited to address genealogists and deliver a paper on the Philadelphia Jewish Archives at the University of Marburg.

In addition to his wife of 48 years, Dr. Presseisen is survived by a son, Benjamin. Another son, Joshua, died in 1997.

A funeral will be at 11 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 10, at Goldsteins' Rosenberg's Raphael-Sacks Memorial Chapel, 6410 N. Broad St. Burial will be in Beth Jacob Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio.

Donations may be made to Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel, 300 S. 18th St., Philadelphia 19103, where Dr. Presseisen had been an active member since 1966.