Holocaust Survivor Receives New Trier Diploma After 53 Years

Dr. Mark Olsky, a Holocaust survivor, received his New Trier High School diploma this week 53 years after he took his final class making him a graduate of the Winnetka school.

Olsky received his diploma at the New Trier Board of Education meeting on Monday, thanks to the efforts of former New Trier West Principal David Cox and current Winnetka Campus Principal Denise Dubravec, according to a school release. Cox, who was a teacher of Olsky’s, recognized the former student when he appeared on a television program discussing his birth, which was on a train “headed from one concentration camp to another.”

Cox discovered that Olsky never received a diploma because he left New Trier after three years to attend the University of Illinois. However, his records indicated that he took a summer school course that gave him enough credits to graduate, and his transcript was marked with a graduation date of Aug. 10, 1962.

“This is truly just a wonderful, wonderful honor,” Olsky said. “The fact that one of my teachers after all these years saw my name and recognized it … that to me is something practically miraculous.”

Olsky has spent his career as an emergency room physician and now lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

“My teachers were absolutely wonderful,” Olsky said of his time at New Trier. “Mr. Gerol was absolutely a second parent after my regular parents. He was worried about me and about if my experience was going well, as well as it could. Mr. Cox as a physics teacher was absolutely wonderful. I really can’t think of a class that wasn’t great.”