Walter Sommers was having a good day.
It was the early 1960s and his women’s coat department in the Terre Haute Meis store was the retailer’s most successful division.
Sommers decided it was time to celebrate. He rounded up his employees and headed down the street two blocks to the lunchroom at the Terre Haute House.
Sommers had eaten there before, but this time was different. The waitress told him she could not serve the African-American employee seated next to him.
The incident, which would have a significant impact in west-central Indiana, is just one scene from Sommers’ century-long life related in A Reluctant Hero: The Walter Sommers Story, the latest book by Crawford County writer Rick Kelsheimer.
Sommers’ life provides “a blueprint of how to life the life of a good human being” as well as a message of hope, Kelsheimer said. He considers himself fortunate to know the man who will turn 101 Dec. 29.
The book covers Sommers’ life from his early years in Germany to more recent years when he served as a lecturer at the CANDLES holocaust museum.
“Walter Sommers views himself as an ordinary man who simply did what he had to do to get by in life,” Kelsheimer wrote. “His life, however, has been anything but ordinary.
“... He has been called a loyal German, a dirty Jew, a refugee, an immigrant, G.I. Joe, a liberator, an entrepreneur, a business man, a husband and family man civil rights activist, a philanthropist and last, but not least — a hero.”
As a teenager, Sommers witnessed the rise of Hitler and Nazism and came to realize there was no future for him in Germany. In 1938, he watched as mobs destroyed Jewish businesses on Kristallnacht and then learned his father — a proud Germany businessman who had fought for the Kaiser in World War I — had been taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Despite being told to flee to South America, Sommers risked his own freedom and remained in Germany until he was able to secure his father’s release and arrange transport for himself, his parents and sister to the U.S.
After Pearl Harbor, Sommers attempted to enlist in the U.S. Army. Not yet a citizen, he was rejected with a curt “You’re in the wrong army, Adolf.” Drafted less than two months later, he was welcomed to the military by the same sergeant with an “Oh, well.”
Because of his education, Sommers was on the fast track for officers’ school, until it was realized he was a potential “enemy alien.” Instead, he was sent to artillery school as a private.
En route to Arizona, Sommers’ train broke down in Terre Haute. Ordered to stand guard over his unit’s Howitzers in sub-zero weather, Sommers got his first taste of Hoosier Hospitality when local residents arrived with coffee and donuts for him.
Sommers would participate in driving the Japanese from Guam, Leyte and Okinawa, Along the way, he met actress Betty Hutton, who was with the USO, and legendary journalist Ernie Pyle. He also gained his citizenship.
After the war, Sommers started a plastics company in New York. He also married Louise Levite, neé Liesl-Lotte Levite, another Jew who had escaped Germany.
But Sommers was unhappy in New York, so when Louise’s uncle Salo Levite, half-owner of Meis, invited him to come work in the women’s clothing department, he accepted. He had not forgotten the kidness Terre Haute residents had shown him during the war.
Sommers, his wife and two children settled in and attempted to put the past behind them. Louise abandoned her birth name and they both worked to lose their accents. Their children were given the “American” names Ron and Nancy and encouraged to participate in “All-American” activities such as scouts. Germany was not discussed.
Yet the past was never fully forgotten. Sommers installed three heavy locks on his front door. He and Louise never left home without their U.S. passports and she kept a stash of Swiss marks, just in case.
Then, one day, Sommers came face to face with discrimination again and he was tired of it.
“You will serve us exactly as we are seated or I will never eat here again,” he told the Terre Haute House waitress. “More than that, I will make sure than nobody from Meis will eat here either.”
Stunned, the waitress left to consult with the manager. When she returned, she took everyone’s order as if nothing had happened.
It was the beginning of the end of segregated dinning in Terre Haute as Sommers would repeat the scene at other restaurants. Owners, not willing to risk a significant loss of business, suddenly decided it was okay for workers to eat together regardless of color.
Sommers’ activism continued years later after he retired. He volunteered with charities and taught English as a second language to international students at Indiana State University.
While working with a Korean student, Sommers took her to the CANDLES museum and taught her about the Holocaust. CANDLES founder Eva Kor overheard and urged him to become a museum docent.
“You need to be here. People need to hear your story,” she said.
In 2016, in recognition of his efforts to help and educate others, Sommers was presented the Cross of the Order of Merit, Germany’s highest civilian award. The official presentation was made at CANDLES.
Now 100 years old and a widower, Sommers’ activities have been curtailed by the pandemic. Still, he keeps going.
“Have faith and we’ll get through it,” he said.
A Reluctant Hero: The Walter Sommers Story, is available in trade paperback and as an e-book from Amazon.com