Obituary: Louis L. Gerson, of Southbury

Information via Carpino Funeral Home, Southbury, CT

Louis L. Gerson - Political Scientist, UConn Department Head, Polish immigrant, Dulles biographer, WWII veteran, Holocaust scholar, and Mansfield political leader Louis L. Gerson died on October 16, in Southbury, Connecticut.

He had lived in Sherman, Connecticut since 2006, after leaving Storrs, Connecticut where he had lived for 58 years. Gerson was a central figure in the post-WWII development of the University of Connecticut.

Long among the college's most popular professors, and for a decade (1967-1977) head of the Political Science Department, he served in almost all capacities in university governance over his long tenure.

He also was active in the Connecticut Democratic party, and in campaigns for both Senators Dodd, Ribicoff and Lieberman, and several Democratic Representatives from the 2nd Congressional District.

He served as Mansfield Democratic Town Committee Chairman from 1969-1972. His academic interests focused on diplomatic history and US foreign policy. He wrote widely, including three books, one on Woodrow Wilson and the rebirth of Poland, one on hyphenated Americans and their influence on US politics and foreign policy, and a biography of John Foster Dulles.

His courses over four decades at UConn included introductions to US foreign policy and many advanced topics in political science.

His students included many who went on to leadership in Connecticut politics and commerce. Later in his career and in his retirement, he focused on Holocaust studies, with particular interests in the experience of Polish Jews, was a lecturer at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, in 1983 and 1984, was Director of its Summer Program in Polish Culture and Language, and was active in its Research Center on Jewish History and Culture. He also was a Visiting professor at the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw.

Gerson (born Leib Gerson) was born in Tomaszow Lubelski, Poland, on November 10, 1921, where his great uncle was a rabbi and grandfather a leading merchant. He was one of the few Jews in the town to attend its public high school.

He and his mother, Hannah Bergerbaum Gerson, escaped the impending Holocaust after he wrote a letter, in self-taught English, to the United States Ambassador to Poland, John Cudahy, for which he was awarded an appointment. He traveled alone by horse and carriage and train to Warsaw, met the Ambassador and received rare visas for himself and his mother to come to America.

They emigrated the following year, in 1938, when he was 17, and shortly before many of his remaining relatives were killed by the Nazis, some murdered in his hometown, others in camps, especially the Belzec Extermination Camp, just miles away. Later in his life he was instrumental in restoring the Jewish cemetery in his hometown.

His uncle, Samuel Berger, had earlier emigrated to Watertown, Connecticut, where he had a fur business. Gerson and his mother lived there initially before moving to the Bronx, NY, where he graduated from Dewitt Clinton High School.

He started college at NYU but immediately after war was declared, he defied his mother, left college and enlisted in the Army, where he rose to staff sergeant. He served in North Africa and Europe, and fought in the Normandy invasion and the Battle of the Bulge.

After the war, he attended UConn, graduating in 1948, and where he met his wife, Elizabeth Shanley, the orphan of Irish immigrants who was raised in New Haven by her aunt and uncle. Following UConn, he went to Yale for his graduate studies.

He studied under Samuel Flagg Bemis and earned his M.A. In 1950 and his Ph.D in 1952. He began his career at UConn in 1950 as an Instructor, becoming a full Professor in 1962, and Department Head in 1967; he remained there until he retired in 1988.

His work brought him recognition as a Ford Foundation fellow, a Rockefeller Foundation fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow, and he taught in India as a Fulbright Scholar and in Taiwan. He remained an active professor emeritus until he moved to Sherman.

He is survived by three children, Elliot of Washington, D.C, and Aspen, CO, William of Charlotte, VT, and Ann Swanson of Sherman, CT. His brother Steven Gerson lives in Brooklyn, NY. He has twelve grandchildren and seven great grand-children. His wife of 47 years, Elizabeth Shanley Gerson, a geriatric social worker, died in Storrs in 1997. A memorial service will be held in Storrs in the spring. Arrangements by Carpino Funeral Home, Southbury, CT