As part of Reinhardt College’s “Year of Eastern Europe and Russia, the public is invited to to hear a first-hand account of the Holocaust from Thomas Reed, a native of Poland who now lives in Milton, Ga. On Oct. 15, at 11 a.m., on the top level of the Hill Freeman Library and Spruill Learning Center, Reed will speak about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor.
“I will tell people what I have lived through,” Reed said. “I will say, ‘Think about what it would be to be a 12-and-a-half year old boy. Close your eyes and let’s get going.’ Then I tell them my story, what I saw and experienced.”
In 1944 when the Germans occupied Hungary, Mr. Reed was the oldest of five children in his family. They were forced into a local Ghetto along with the 500 other Jewish inhabitants of their small town of Mezocsat. They were then transported to a central Ghetto and sent to Auschwitz in Poland. There his family, except for him and his father, was immediately murdered. Reed pretended to be 17 years old and, along with his father, was selected for work in Germany. He and his father survived the concentration camps of Munchen-Allach, Mulhdorf-Mettenheim and Mittergars and a massacre in Poing, Bavaria.
He was liberated by the U.S. Army at Tutzing, Bavaria. He lived for several years in a displaced persons camp in Bavaria and for a short while in Munich prior to coming to the U.S. in 1949. He served in the U.S. Army, married an American girl, and they have three children and five grandchildren. He earned a B.S.E.E. and J.D. and retired after 42 years in the defense industry.
For more on Reinhardt's Year of Eastern Europe and Russia, please see www.reinhardt.edu/Yeer/index.htm
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