Walter Reed, a survivor of the Nazi occupation of Europe, delivered a presentation about his connection to the Holocaust on Oct. 24. The presentation was coordinated as part of a joint effort by the Jewish Learning Club and french teacher Ann Koller, according to Nathan Unterman, the Jewish Learning Club liaison.

Reed said that a main goal for his talks with student groups was to get beyond the label “Holocaust” and other terms like “Kristallnacht” to show what they mean to the people who lived through them.

“It might deepen their understanding in the direction of, ‘Well it wasn’t six and a half million Jews, it was six and a half million individuals,’” said Reed. “They were grandfathers, they were children, and they were people who deserved to have a decent life. When you use the label Holocaust, the only thing that comes to mind to most people is, ‘six and a half million killed.’ Period.”

Born in Bavaria in 1924, Reed was arrested and imprisoned in 1938 for three days. Sent by his parents to Belgium in 1939, he was eventually moved to Southern France. He sailed in 1941 from Lisbon, Portugal to New York. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943 and sent to Europe where he spent the remainder of World War II interrogating German army prisoners, he said. More information about Reed and his story can be found online, and the GBN library is planning to have a copy of a video of the presentation available to students in the near future, according to Unterman.

Unterman said that Reed is a “living piece of history” and that the rarity of his situation gives it significance.

“Once all of those people die, everything’s second or third [person],” said Unterman. “It’s exciting to have a first person account for something that is that significant of a story. That’s important.”