Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs A woman mourning the loss of her beloved 100-year-old grandfather gained a new perspective on his life and achievements after stumbling upon his CV from the late 1940s.In today’s fast-paced employment market, it’s often claimed that someone has a matter of seconds to catch the eye of a job recruiter with their CV. James Reed, chairman of the recruitment company Reed, reckons it’s as little as seven seconds.Ellsworth Rosen may have written his CV all the way back in the 1940s, but it took a matter of seconds for his granddaughter, Kyra Shishko, 34, from Boston, to be reminded of what an incredible life and career he had enjoyed.Rosen passed away on November 21, 2024. He was 100 years old and had been an ever-present source of kindness and wisdom throughout Shishko’s life. “We were extremely close,” Shishko told Newsweek. “Our parents worked full time jobs and were very busy so our grandparents absolutely helped raise us—picked us up from school, helped us with homework, took us to sports practices, etc.”
Kyra Shishko was close to her grandfather, and when reading his old CV she gained insight into the early part of his life.
Kyra Shishko was close to her grandfather, and when reading his old CV she gained insight into the early part of his life.
Reddit/KJS51
Married to late wife Leonora for 71 years, until her passing in 2020, together they had three children and six grandchildren, whom Rosen regularly shared stories with from his experiences as a staff sergeant with the Texas 36th Infantry Division during the Second World War.”My cousins and siblings and I would sleep over their house all the time and recall our ‘Papa’ lulling us to bed with war stories. He was an excellent orator and we heard so many of the same stories SO many times but it never got old,” Shishko said. “I have heard some pretty incredible, horrible, and sometimes hilarious stories about his time in World War II.”Born to Russian Jewish immigrant parents in Connecticut, Rosen’s background gave him a unique perspective on the atrocities he witnessed while liberating several concentration camps.”He was an ardent believer in bearing witness to history and the Holocaust,” Shishko said. “He talked a lot about the experience of being a Jewish American soldier— how when he liberated Dachau he spoke in Yiddish to the prisoners and they were shocked Jews were still alive and free anywhere.”A writer and advocate for equal rights, who also worked for the non-profit Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Rosen continued to speak and educate young people about his experience of the Second World War at schools and universities right up into his 90s.”He was cognitively well until the very end. We were so fortunate,” Shishko said. “He wasn’t sick at all at his passing. He just sort of started powering down a few months prior. Slept more, ate less, etc. His death was peaceful and surrounded by family.”Shishko already knew so much about her grandfather’s life but, while going through some of his things, was surprised to discover one of his old CVs from just after the war in 1946.It detailed some of his exploits from during the conflict. How he had reported for Stars and Stripes magazine during the conflict in France, produced articles while stationed in places like Marseille and Geneva.He spent time studying at the Sorbonne in Paris and while stationed in Switzerland. The CV also spoke of his “intimate knowledge” of France, Germany and Austria, which was gained during the war, how he would liaise with newspapers in France and was “company interpreter” both there and in neighboring Germany.Reading through these and his academic accomplishments, Shishko gained fresh insight into just how formative the war years had been for her grandfather.”I was so touched by this resume because I always knew him at the tail end of his impressive life and it was so fascinating to see how he started,” she said.She was particularly amused by what Rosen listed in the personal section of his CV in which he described himself as a “good mixer” and listed his hobbies as “theater, sports, chess, women.””I was not at all surprised he added ‘sports, chess, women, to his resume,” she said. “He always loved the ladies and was a bit cheeky. The resume was such a great representation of his personality. Under language he said he had ‘a military knowledge of German,’ which was clearly a bit of tongue and cheek.”Shishko ended up sharing the CV to Reddit, under the handle u/kjs51, because she felt, in part, that it highlighted “just how much times have changed what we now perceive to be an appropriate CV.””My grandfather was an incredibly impressive man who was such a patriarch of our family and also such an incredible, kind, giving, activist in this world so I would be lying if, in my missing him, posting it wasn’t also a bit of an homage,” Shishko said.”I hope people see the resume as a way to relate. Human behavior is a through line and people are generally similar, if not also products of the time they live in. This resume is indicative of just a 23-year-old man putting an unpolished, slightly embellished version of himself on paper, hoping to start a life and make a living.”
