Great Falls resident John Kunz Jr. speaks at the Great Falls Public Library at 6 p.m. Nov. 16 about his family’s escape from a Polish concentration camp and their life in Montana after fleeing Poland at the end of World War II.

He’ll be speaking in the Cordingley Room in the basement.

Kunz and his family survived imprisonment in Germany and arrived in the U.S. as refugees after the war.

Kunz was six years old at the time.

With the support and sponsorship of a family through the Catholic Church in Fairfield, the Kunz family was able to make Great Falls home.

After graduating from Central Catholic High School in 1962, Kunz enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.

He left the Marines as a sergeant, living in New Jersey and tending bar at his brother’s Polish tavern.

Kunz’s parents John and Agnes lived in Great Falls until they passed.

John Sr. died in 2001 at the age of 90 and Agnes passed in 2003 at the age of 93, according to a library release.

When the family arrived in Great Falls, they could not read or speak any English.