Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1298749
SiG MT 37 SiG MT 53 Kunz, a Polish immigrant who arrived in Montana in 1949, is talking to groups about his family's immigration to Montana aer World War II on the 75th anniversary of the end of the war and liberation of the camps. He wants people to remember the Nazi horrors, particularly the brutality toward the Jewish and non-Jewish Polish people alike. His parents and four siblings came to the U.S. from the Amberg, Germany refugee camp, sponsored by St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Fairfield, aer a four-year wait. He had been born at the Ramsenthal, Germany concentration camp in 1944, which was abandoned by Nazis as the U.S. Army advanced on it. "I am fortunate because if I hadn't been born in that misery I wouldn't be here (in Montana)," he said. "ere is not a day that goes by that I am not thankful for my life, my friends, and my opportunities in the USA and Great Falls, Montana." Kunz, 75, begins his talks with the friendly Polish greeting, "Dzien Dobry" (Good Day). But his story is a grim reminder of inhumanity. e Kunz family went from the concentration camp, to living in a one-room wooden barracks in the refugee camp, to the basement at the St. John's annex, where they stayed for a year before coming to Great Falls. e Kunzes were among some 30 Polish families sponsored by St. John's, largely through the efforts of the parish priest, Rev. Russell Schiedler, who had been sent by the Bishop of Helena to visit refugee camps in Germany. Many wound up in northcentral Montana. MEMORY LANE TEXT BY TOM KOTYNSKI John Kunz, a retired Great Falls Realtor, was born in a Nazi concentration camp and for that he's grateful. Remembering the Holocaust Survivor John Kunz Believes the Holocaust Must be Remembered so "It Doesn't Happen Again". John Kunz, a Polish immigrant, brings the past into the present by sharing memories to multiple groups across Montana, of how the Holocaust shaped his life. "Liberation by U.S. Army 1945 Ramsenthal, Germany – Slave Labor Camp. Agnes Kunz stands behind her son John, and sisters, Stella to his left and Helena on his right."