[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 28 (Tuesday, February 13, 2024)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E140]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          CELEBRATING THE 100TH BIRTHDAY OF MR. HILBERT MARGOL

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. RICHARD McCORMICK

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 13, 2024

  Mr. McCORMICK. Mr. Speaker, today, I pay tribute to the incredible 
service and life of Mr. Hilbert ``Hibby'' Margol of Dunwoody, Georgia. 
Mr. Margol is a World War II veteran and, this month, I join his 
friends and family in celebrating his 100th birthday.
  Mr. Hilbert Margol was born on February 22, 1924, just 10 minutes 
before his identical twin brother, Howard. The two brothers attended 
the University of Florida and were drafted into the U.S. Army in 1944. 
They were inseparable until they were assigned to different infantry 
divisions.
  In 1942, the military instituted a policy of separating siblings when 
assigned to military units or ships. Their mother, Mrs. Margol, took 
matters into her own hands and wrote a letter to President Franklin D. 
Roosevelt requesting the U.S. Army make an exception for her sons to be 
placed together. Her plea was successful, and the brothers were back 
together again.
  The pair were assigned to the U.S. Army 42nd Infantry ``Rainbow'' 
Division, 392nd Field Artillery Battalion, as Howitzers gunners. Seven 
months after D-Day, the Margol brothers arrived in Europe. As their 
unit moved toward Munich, Germany, they happened upon a fence at the 
end of a rural two-lane road. They quickly realized they had stumbled 
upon a massive, almost industrial-looking complex. It was Dachau, the 
first Nazi Concentration Camp.
  As Mr. Margol searched the area, he found dozens of railroad cars 
loaded with piles of human remains. He documented the horrors of Dachau 
with a Brownie camera. These photographs are on display at the United 
States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.
  After the war, the brothers earned their degrees from the University 
of Florida in 1948 and married their wives in the same year. Hilbert 
moved to Atlanta in 1987 with his wife, Betty Ann, and they have lived 
there ever since.
  Mr. Margol is a Jewish American hero and a liberator, and he turns 
100 years old on February 22, 2024. May America and the great State of 
Georgia be forever blessed with patriots like Hilbert Margol. His 
service to our Nation is a debt we can never truly repay.

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