Yom Hashoah 2011

will be held

Sunday, May 1, 2011, at 7:00 p.m.

 Temple Emanuel

 1115 Mississippi Avenue

Davenport, IA 52803

 ADMISSION IS FREE

Augustana College Chamber Singers conducted by Michael Zemek
Janina Ehrlich, Cello Stephen A. Steely, Organ

For more information, contact the Jewish Federation
at (309) 793-1300 or aross@jfqc.org.
Walter Reed will be the featured speaker.

Walter Reed was born Werner Rindsberg in 1924, in Wuerzburg, Germany.  On Kristallnacht, Walter, at age 14, was jailed for 3 days, along with other local Jewish boys and men. His father and the other men were sent to Dachau for 4-6 weeks.  In June 1939, keeping his two younger brothers at home, Walter’s parents put him on a Kindertransport to Belgium, to save his life.   After living in a boys' home near Brussels until the Germans invaded Belgium in 1940, Walter and over 90 other boys and girls were able to escape to southern France, where the children (aged 6 to 17) lived in a barn and later in an abandoned old chateau. They became known as the Children of La Hille (after the name of this chateau). Through the efforts of his mother’s American siblings, he was able to leave France via Spain and Portugal for New York in August 1941.  Two years later he was drafted into the US Army and changed his name to Walter Reed in 1943 when he became a US citizen.

Back in Europe in 1944, he was transferred to the Military Intelligence Service and served in the 95th Infantry Division under General Patton. His MIS team's main task was to interrogate German prisoners and civilians near the front lines.  He is a graduate of the University Of Missouri School Of Journalism and worked in the public relations profession until his retirement in 2002. 

History of Walter W. Reed

Jewish Refugees who returned to Nazi Germany as U.S. soldiers during World War II

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