Henry Guggenheimer, who escaped Nazi Germany at age 12 in 1940 with his widowed mother, died Nov. 7. He was 96. Born in Stuttgart, he and his mother traveled through Eastern Europe and ultimately by freighter from Japan to San Francisco. He attended high school in Lima, Ohio, was drafted into the U.S. Army, served in Japan with the occupation force, and saw combat in Korea.

Guggenheimer had managed seven Shoe Corporation of America retail stores, then worked for Elder-Beerman department stores, managing several of its shoe departments.

In Dayton, he was an active member of Jewish War Veterans Post #587 and a docent for Prejudice and Memory: A Holocaust Exhibit, on permanent display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.

“Whenever they need me, I come over and lead the tours around,” Guggenheimer told The Observer in a 2017 interview.

“I give them a talk, we lead them around through the exhibit, and we give them our own story, what happened to us, and they ask questions. They always thank me for giving the talk.”

In 2022, his video testimony was added to the Faces of the Holocaust series produced by Renate Frydman, the Dayton Holocaust Resource Center, and Wright State University.

To read the complete December 2024 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.