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SiG MT 54 Kunz fears memory of the Holocaust is being lost. "People think this could never happen again, but it could." People are unaware that some 3 million non-Jewish Polish civilians were murdered by the Nazis, in addition to 6 million Jews, in something he calls a "Forgoen Holocaust." Kunz didn't broadcast his story growing up, "because I didn't want to play the victim. I wanted to be an American." When he arrived in the U.S. the only English he knew were the words to the song, "You are My Sunshine," he learned from an American soldier. Kunz, whose English is perfect, spoke strictly Polish at home. e Kunz family odyssey began in 1942 when they were taken from their southeastern Polish town (now in Ukraine) and forced to work at the Ramsenthal concentration camp. His story requires a history lesson that he presents in photos of himself in the camps, along with his family. Poland had been wiped off the map by Russia, Austria and Prussia in three partitions in the late 18th Century and reappeared 123 years later in 1918 aer World War I, only to be aacked on Sept. 1, 1939 by the Nazis from the west, beginning World War II, and then by the Soviets from the east 17 days later. His family's ancestral home had been where some of the biggest bales between the Russian and German armies occurred and where later, the Nazis had death or extermination camps. A well-known one was nearby Belzec. "My parents talked of knowing its existence and purpose and the overpowering smell of burning bodies," he said. He wants people to remember the Nazi horrors, particularly the brutality toward the Jewish and non-Jewish Polish people alike. 1948 May Day celebration in Amberg, Germany. John stands at front and center with Polish flag. 1945 Ramsenthal, Germany Slave Labor Camp. John Kunz family and cousins.

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