To understand why Fred Katz ’52 gives to Guilford, you have to start with how he arrived at the College in the first place. Fred was 11 years old when his mother hugged and kissed him goodbye, placing him on a train out of Germany to escape the certain death that later claimed the rest of his family in the Holocaust.

Even now, decades later, he remembers the striking similarities between fleeing Germany during World War II and arriving at Guilford 11 years later.

“I didn’t have anything when I fled Germany, and I certainly didn’t have much when I came to Guilford,” Fred recalls.

Not even a high school diploma.

But Guilford’s leaders saw potential in him and welcomed him to campus. “I didn’t have any money to pay for school, but everyone kept telling me not to worry—they’d figure something out,” he says.

Make an unrestricted gift to Guilford by June 30

More than 70 years later, the memories of his time at Guilford remain vivid. Fred earned a degree in Sociology and Anthropology, then went on to earn a PhD in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He later taught at the University of Missouri, the State University of New York at Buffalo, and Tel Aviv University, focusing his scholarship on the Holocaust. Now 97 and retired, he continues to write.

Fred says he arrived at Guilford unable to find joy in himself or the world. That began to change through classes, professors, and friendships. “I’m not sure what would have become of me were it not for Guilford,” he says.

Earlier this year, Fred made a gift to the For the Good of Guilford campaign, which ends June 30. He encourages alumni and friends of the College to contribute if they can.

“Guilford lit a fire in me intellectually,” he says. “The College was lighting those fires long before I got there and continues to do so. That’s why I gave — to help Guilford keep lighting those fires for others.”