TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — Walter Sommers, a Holocaust survivor and longtime volunteer guide at the CANDLES Holocaust Museum in Terre Haute, Ind., has died at the age of 101, the museum announced online Friday.
Sommers, according to the museum’s website, was born to a Jewish family on Dec. 29, 1920 in Frankfurt, Germany. Despite their struggles, Sommer’s parents had the foresight that he would need to learn foreign languages and he was learning English, French and Spanish.
On the night of Dec. 9, 1938, when Walter and another apprentice was on their way home, they saw many synagogues being burned, Jewish businesses being vandalized and destroyed, homes were ransacked and many people were forced out of their houses and beaten and arrested by German Stormtroopers.
After that night, which is known as Kristallnacht, the Nazi government had released a notice that all Jews would have the opportunity to leave the country. Walter managed to convince his family to leave Germany and to move to the United States; however, the United States immigration policy at the time stated that in order to immigrate, the Sommers family had to prove that they had a living relative currently residing within the country.
After getting in contact with a distant relative over their situation, Walter was successfully able to move him and his family to the United States and escape the impending Holocaust. He lived in Terre Haute, where he volunteered at CANDLES Holocaust Museum as a docent and educated people on how Hitler rose to power and the events that happened during Kristallnacht.
Walter passed away on Feb. 17 at the age of 101.
