Galloway, N.J. — More than anything, the Roth family fears their parents’ story will be forgotten.  

It’s a story of World War II, deportation, concentration camps and death marches, but also of liberation, love, resilience, a journey to America, the starting of a family and the building of a highly successful business in southern New Jersey.  

With the establishment of the Sam and Elizabeth Roth Endowed Memorial Scholarship in Holocaust Studies, their story will live in perpetuity at Stockton University.  

“We support Holocaust education to ensure that the past is never forgotten and hopefully that it will never happen in the future. Our parent’s biggest concern, one of their biggest concerns in life, was that what they went through — being taken from their homes, losing their parents and their brothers and sisters in a murderous way — that a story like that should always be remembered,” said Ed Roth, who joined his brothers Carl and Henry and their wives to celebrate their $25,000 commitment to the Stockton University Foundation last week.  

The new endowment will provide an annual scholarship to an undergraduate student with a demonstrated interest in Holocaust and Genocide Studies.  

“This endowment honors Samuel, Elizabeth, and the loved ones they lost by preserving their memory, their courage, and their belief in the power of education,” said Dan Nugent, the executive director of the University Foundation. “Thank you for entrusting that to us.” 

In 1944, Samuel Roth and his family were forced into the Munkács ghetto in Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine) before being deported to Auschwitz and later Gusen II, where he endured brutal forced labor. When he returned home after liberation in 1945, only he and his brother Martin had survived.  

Elizabeth Roth and her family were also forced into Munkács and deported to Auschwitz, where only she and her sister Rella survived. They were later sent to Stutthof, then to forced labor in an ammunition factory and ultimately survived a death march before being liberated by the Soviet Red Army in 1945. Elizabeth’s parents and four other siblings were murdered during the Holocaust.  

Elizabeth and Samuel met and married after liberation and in 1949 immigrated to the United States. They built a new life in Millville, beginning with working on a poultry farm. The family eventually established Tower Hospitality, a company that today owns three hotels in Cumberland County. Later, Elizabeth became a passionate advocate for Holocaust education, sharing her story with K-12 and Stockton students through the university’s Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center (HRC). In 2024, the center published a first-person account of Elizabeth’s life titled “From Munkács to Millville: The Story of Holocaust Survivor Elizabeth Roth.” 

Stockton President Joe Bertolino praised the Roths for providing this opportunity for students and for supporting the HRC. 

“We’re trying to create here a culture of opportunity, and gifts like this provide opportunities for students to learn, to pass that learning onto others and to ensure that they are successful,” he said. “Thank you for honoring the legacy of your parents and your family. And thank you for providing an opportunity for the story to continue to be told to the students that are with us today and the students that will be with us in the future.” 

HRC Director Irvin Moreno-Rodriguez also thanked the Roths and told them that without scholarships like this he would have never been able to graduate from Stockton. 

“These scholarships are the difference between someone staying at Stockton and graduating, or not,” he said. “I was one of those students. What I tell everyone is that we are planting seeds to a forest that we may never see, and we have to keep planting those seeds to make this world a better place for all.” 

Ed Roth praised the work of the HRC to inform all in South Jersey about the horrors of the Holocaust. 

“We’re very grateful to Stockton and the center and leaders like Gail Rosenthal (the HRC’s previous director) and to Irvin, who are keeping, not just the memory alive, but educating our young people as to what could happen when people become so desperate that they turn on one another to the degree that they did,” he said. 

— Story by Mark Melhorn, photos by Abbigail Erbacher