Walter Sommers - A Life of Courage and Resilience

Walter Sommers was a Holocaust survivor, U.S. Army veteran, and educator who devoted his life to justice, equality, and teaching future generations about the dangers of hatred.

Sommers was born to a Jewish family on December 29, 1920, in Frankfurt, Germany. Due to the economic consequences of World War I, Germany was deep in a depression, and the Sommers family kept a cow and a few chickens in their basement as sources of food.

But the Sommers persevered through these conditions. Julius Sommers, Walter’s father, owned a chain of 38 stores, Wittwe Hassan, and sold coffee, wine and chocolate with Walter at his side. At the time, Walter was also in school six days out of the week, focusing on foreign languages including English, French, and Spanish; these skills allowed him to secure an apprenticeship with a Hamburg import-export company.

When the Nazi Party took power with the election of Adolf Hitler in 1933, Walter, his family, and Jews throughout Germany were blamed for the nation’s debt, faced persecution from the Nazis and were dehumanized through Nazi laws and propaganda. In 1935, Walter was expelled from school and his hockey club; his family was no longer allowed to own a home, and Julius was forced to sell his 38 stores. The Sommers also had their German citizenship revoked.

On November 9, 1938, retail stores (including Wittwe Hassan) and synagogues were destroyed and burned, and around 30,000 Jewish men, including Julius, were arrested and taken to concentration camps. This night, known as Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, would trigger Walter and his family’s emigration from the persecution they faced in Germany, only after he spent six weeks securing his father’s release from the Buchenwald concentration camp.

The Sommers spent months searching for a sponsor in order to immigrate to the United States. At the time, US policy stated that immigrants had to prove that they had a living relative currently residing within the country. Walter got in contact with a distant relative who agreed to sponsor the Sommers on the condition that it was a sponsorship and nothing more.

After the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, Walter attempted to enlist in the US Army. However, he was first rejected as an “enemy alien.” But in 1942, Walter was drafted and served at military outposts across Asia, including Guam, Leyte, and Okinawa.

During the war, Walter became an American citizen and, after the war had ended, he started Sommers Plastics company in New York; the next year, he married Louise Levita.

In 1948, Louise’s uncle asked Walter to work with him at the Meis Department Store in Terre Haute, Indiana. Having been through Terre Haute during his time in the military, Walter eagerly accepted.

Terre Haute, however, proved to be much different than New York which, at the time, had very little segregation. In the 1960s, Walter and a few of his work friends, one of whom was African American, went to The Deming Hotel for lunch. Walter reassured his young, African American friend that if the restaurant refused him service, they would all leave and never come back.

Although their waitress initially refused them service, Walter and his friends threatened to leave, and subsequently the hotel’s manager allowed them all to be served. It was shortly after this that larger stores and restaurants began to serve African Americans, namely, the Terre Haute House followed suit, and from that moment on, African Americans could eat wherever they wanted to in downtown Terre Haute; this soon spread across all of Indiana.

In retirement, Walter became a Holocaust educator at the CANDLES Holocaust Museum in Terre Haute, among other places and platforms. At the age of 95, Walter was awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by the German President. He passed away on February 17th, 2022, at the age of 101.

References:
Majewski, Kiel. “From Immigrant to Entrepreneur.” Terre Haute Living, 2010, candlesholocaustmuseum.org/file_download/inline/3d32a594-c0a9-4660-8323-d0703b19e8d2.
“Meet Walter Sommers.” CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Center, candlesholocaustmuseum.org/our-survivors/walter-sommers/meet-walter-sommers.html.
“Walter Martin Sommers Obituary February 17, 2022.” Callahan & Hughes Funeral Home, www.callahanandhughes.com/obituaries/walter-sommers.

Key words:
Justice, Wartime, Courage, Perseverance, Freedom, Responsibility, Challenge Injustices, Make a Difference

Explore ARTEFFECT projects about this Unsung Hero:
Walter Sommers Artworks