Museum admission fees will be waived on Sunday, May 5, 2024 in honor of Holocaust survivor Walter Kase, z”l and Yom HaShoah.
When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, it soon became clear that Walter’s family’s lives would never be the same again. At the end of 1940, Walter, his parents and his sister, Rysia, were herded into a Jewish ghetto. One day in 1941, the ghetto residents were told to gather in the city square. There, in front of her family, Rysia was lined up with other young children and shot to death. Twelve-year-old Walter was sent with his father to the labor camp of Pionki, later to Auschwitz and Sosnowiec, and finally to Mauthausen and two of its sub-camps.
Walter and his father were liberated by the 71st Infantry Division of the United States Army on May 5, 1945. Taken to a hospital to recuperate, Walter regained his strength, but his father succumbed a month later. Walter made his way back to Poland, where he was reunited with his mother. In 1947, Walter came to the United States, settling in Kansas City, Missouri. There, he finished his schooling, started a career in sales and was drafted and served proudly during the Korean War. Walter was able to bring his mother to the United States, where she settled in Washington, DC.
Walter moved to Houston, where he established a successful import business. He was active in Jewish causes, sitting on the boards of the Anti-Defamation League and Holocaust Museum Houston. The Anti-Defamation League established a Teachers’ Award in Walter’s name, and he was the first recipient of the St. Augustine Award from St. Thomas University in recognition of his life-changing impact on others.
