Chemistry coach uses deep history to teach students

BY TONY GICAS
STAFF WRITER | CLIFTON JOURNAL

CLIFTON To many in the classroom and on the ball fields

he has been known simply as "Chil," the chemistry teacher
with a flair for connecting with his students and dictator-like
head coach capable of getting the most out of his players.

However, there's more to the respected and revered 59-

year-old Clifton High School faculty member than just
covalent bonds and corner kicks.

Born Out of War

For his parents, the journey and settlement in the United States may have been the serene
chapter of two lives marked by tragedy, persecution and death-defying odds.

Daniel Chilowicz' father only made it through the eighth grade. His mother's education
terminated abruptly, forcing her to sign with an "X" instead of her name for most of her life.
Both were intelligent people who had good reason for cutting their academics short namely
World War II.

"The war came to my mother's town in a very odd way," Chilowicz said.

The day the Germans rolled into Pola Horowitz' Ukrainian town of Nadworna, she was supposed
to be watching her step-brother. She was over at her friend's house playing with dolls,
however, and when she returned home that night she discovered her brother had been run
over by a German tank during her absence.

Pola had already been forced to overcome tragedy as her mother had died giving birth to her.

Because of her Jewish background Pola was shipped to a German concentration camp, working
in a laundry facility. During that time, Chilowicz said his mother was raped by one of the Nazi
officers and ultimately gave birth to a child which he took away from her.

The same officer would provide her with a pair of wire-cutters, allowing her and some friends to
escape the camp before the majority of its inhabitants were sent to the gas chamber.

It wasn't an easy getaway, however. During the escape, Pola, who was already very ill with
tuberculosis, took a gunshot which pierced her lungs.

"She basically hitchhiked, walking up through Spain and got into France where she found her
sister," Chilowicz explained.

While staying with her sister in Paris, Pola shared a couch with her brother-in-law's cousin who
was also a Holocaust survivor. The couch-mates soon became soul-mates as Pola and Maurice
Chilowicz would ultimately be married.
But before there were wedding bells the War left similarly heinous scars for Maurice as those
endured by his wife.

When the Germans came into his town in Southwest Poland they set up their residence within
the general store owned by Maurice's father.

"They asked one of [my uncles] to deliver a package to Germans situated in another location,"
Chilowicz said. "My father's brother never came back. The next morning when my grandmother
went out to look for him she was told she could find him in the synagogue. When she got there
he was found hanging by the neck with a knife stabbed in the heart and a note that read 'let's
see what your God can do for you now.'"

Following the horrific experience she hustled her sons out of Poland. Unfortunately Maurice was
sent to a work camp in Siberia before she could reach him.

"My father refused to work on Jewish holidays like Yom Kippur as is customary and so the
Germans almost cut his leg off," Chilowicz said. "He almost died but made a vow to himself that
he would make it through the war alive no matter what he was put through."

A Bronx Tale
Upon their arrival in the United States, Chilowicz' parents settled in a primarily Irish
neighborhood of the Bronx, a few blocks away from Yankee Stadium. Growing up he said he
was the only Jewish kid on his block.

"It was hell," he smiled.

However this was where Chilowicz said he developed his athletic ability.

A pair of Irish siblings used to wait for him after school and knew that if they stole his Hebrew
book or yarmulka (skull cap) and tossed it onto the neighboring fire escape, Chilowicz would
catch a beating from his mother, who detested when her son came home with dirty clothes or a
muddied face.

"I turned myself into one hell of a sprinter," he laughed.

He said these situations made him feel like somewhat of an outsider but, as a result, he
developed a sensitivity to others which he taps into while interacting with the diverse
classrooms of CHS.

Through hard work Chilowicz was able to attend the prestigious Bronx High School of Science
where he excelled academically as well as athletically in soccer and track.

"I was a quarter-miler and half-miler [in track], jumped 5-foot-9-inches in the high jump and
pinch ran on the baseball team. I was the first kid in my neighborhood to play soccer," he
recalled.
No one on his block had a soccer ball to practice with so a relative brought back a water polo
ball from Czechoslovakia. He said his Bronx Science soccer teammates, a diverse, rag-tag posse
of Greeks, Italians, Poles and Israeli's remain some of his closest friends to this day.

Finding The Path

In 1968, Chilowicz graduated from Bronx Science and enrolled at Cornell University with the
intention of becoming a social worker.

"I don't know why it might've been my background but I wanted to help people," he said.

But the upstate New York scenery of Cornell's campus presented Chilowicz with an entirely
different world from his poverty-entrenched Bronx neighborhood and consequently Chilowicz
said he took the social work idea in another direction.

"Talk about a kid who had never been out of New York City, my parents didn't have a car, I
mean I knew nothing," he grinned.

While at school, Chilowicz met his wife, Karen, an Iraqi national whom he said was "thrown out
of her country." He refers to her as his "passion in life."

After graduating in 1972 he received his master's degree in Fine Arts with a concentration in
creative writing. He hoped to eventually write stories based on the experiences of his parents
and relatives.

He returned to New York City where he worked in a print type facility which utilized a printing
press and developed canistered photographs. While there he became friends with a young
worker who wore "coke-bottle glasses" named Diego Ortiz.

"He hadn't finished high school but he was a smart kid," Chilowicz recalled. "I said to him
'Diego, you've got to go back to school,' and he'd say 'hey, Chil, look at my life.'"

Ortiz had three young kids before his 20th birthday. His girlfriend was diagnosed with a mental
illness which requiring her to stay in a sanitarium. Ortiz worked nights so his mother-in-law
could take care of the kids while he was gone.

"He told me 'there's no way I can go back to school.' So I made a promise to myself if I could
ever help people like him I would," Chilowicz remembered. Stories like Diego's helped steer him
into the classroom, Chilowicz .

Learning To Teach
Chilowicz received his teacher's certificate through the alternate route program, which was
especially well-named because he'd ultimately become a chemistry teacher with a degree in
creative writing.

Now in his 20th year of teaching, Chil fills his days by teaching honors, advanced placement
and regular chemistry courses.
"I don't know how other teachers live their lives because I go home and grade [hours] of
homework," Chilowicz said. "I've always tried as much as I can to grade homework because I
think that's the real indicator [of where they are]."

Walter Decker, the supervisor of the science department at CHS, taught in the same classroom
as Chilowicz when he first arrived in the Clifton district 13 years ago.

"He comes on tough - the coaching aspect - but the kids warm up to him and respect him a
lot," Decker said. "It helps that he's as well-versed in English as he is because he is able to
describe things very clearly and get the kids to engage in projects where they have to express
themselves."

Decker said Chilowicz' defining quality is his willingness to take on new challenges and do well
once he takes them on.

For Dana Lyons, a top-10 graduate of the 2009 CHS class currently enrolled at Stevens Institute
of Technology in Hoboken, he was more than a teacher grading papers and chalking up
equations.

Chilowicz served as her lacrosse coach for four years as well as her advanced chemistry teacher
during her junior and senior years.

"In the classroom, Chil clearly has a passion for chemistry," she said. "You can initially tell when
a teacher loves what they're teaching about and this encourages the students to want to learn
the subject. It's ironic because he indeed has a 'chill' personality and is not necessarily uptight
or intimidating as a teacher or a coach."

Lyons said her teacher and coach extended his assistance far outside the classroom, even going
as far as helping her select a college that would cater to her academic and athletic passions.

"I give Chil all of the credit for my decision to go to Stevens. I fit in perfectly here with
challenging engineering courses and a D3 lacrosse team," she said. "He is always willing to talk
to you about your concerns in class and on the field."

Though Chilowicz said he loved his time coaching in Clifton, Butler, Wayne Valley and Montville,
his father's deteriorating health inspired him to begin looking toward the second half of his life.
As a result he became more involved with community service and reaching his students.

"In his later years my father who was my hero - said to me one time that he really admired
me and when I asked him why he said 'because you will live forever.' When I asked what he
meant by that he said because 'your students will always recall you.'"

Gicas@northjersey.com