Robert (Robbie) Shackelford

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One of the most important projects that the Harding University in Florence (HUF) students are involved in are the
Be the Difference- Never Again assignments. The on-site portion of the assignments include visits to the Florence American WWII Cemetery; the village of Campagna near Salerno, where Jews were interned during WWII; as well as Paestum, one of the landing sites of U.S. forces in Operation Avalanche in southern Italy.

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Over ten years ago I read Elizabeth's book, It Happened in Italy: Untold Stories of How the People of Italy Defied the Horrors of the Holocaust, and immediately contacted her, asking her to come speak to my students on her next visit to Italy! We immediately started talking with our students about honoring the Italians who helped save Jews and others unwanted by fascist and Nazi forces.

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I had been taking my HUF students to the WWII cemetery outside of Florence since 1990 but with the
Be the Difference- Never Again program it took on a whole new meaning and purpose. Elizabeth wanted these stories of people risking their lives to save others to inspire us today and have students learn to be the difference by taking action for others in our modern time. Over 1,500 HUF students have participated in this active project.

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The Be the Difference-Never Again concept really came to fruition when I attended the 70th anniversary of the
Liberation of Auschwitz in 2015 with Elizabeth. She received an email during the visit from a Holocaust survivor who had been saved in Italy. In his email, he sent pictures of the American cemeteries across Europe.

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Each cemetery’s picture had information about how many soldiers were buried and how many were listed as
Missing in Action. Elizabeth said, We need to honor these soldiers!! She envisioned each student getting the name
of a soldier to research so that the students could have a true understanding that this was an individual with a family, friends and whose life ended because of war. This is exactly what we do in our program at HUF. The goal is to make these soldiers come alive to each student. Students learn to see them as real people and not just statistics.