Dr. Ted Szabo was 15 when he and his family were rounded up in Hungary and shipped to Auschwitz during World War II. He nearly starved to death during his one-year confinement and because of that, in adulthood, he always slept with a sandwich on his nightstand.
Helen Parker, a daughter from Marietta, said the Holocaust claimed most of her father's family. Only four cousins, an aunt and uncle survived the atrocity. Dr. Szabo was able to escape, eventually make it to America, earn various degrees that include a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, and work 30 years for Union Carbide Corp. He moved to metro Atlanta 10 years ago to be near family.
In retirement, he found the courage to talk outside family circles about the Holocaust. He was 65 when he started giving talks to young people about his experience, appearing at local schools and Boy Scouts events. He tailored the message to the group and always asked the age of the children before his presentation.
"He was always very sensitive," his daughter said. "He saved all the letters kids wrote to him and they would say how amazing it was to meet a real live person who actually was a Holocaust survivor, and to see him in the flesh."
Dr. Ted Tibor Szabo died on June 3 from complications of lung disease at his home in Dunwoody. He was 83. A graveside service has been held at the Temple Israel Cemetery in Norwalk, Conn. Dressler's Jewish Funeral Care handled arrangements.
Dr. Szabo emerged from the concentration camp suffering from various ailments. He was nursed back to health by Catholic nuns at Bences Gimnazium, a prestigious boarding school in Gyor, Hungary.
In 1947, he came to the United States and earned his undergraduate and master's degrees from Kansas University. He received a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Penn State, where he met Renee Edelsohn Szabo, his wife of 53 years. He also received an MBA from the University of Connecticut.
This Holocaust survivor served in the Army's Chemical Corps during the Korean War. After the military, he embarked on a career with Union Carbide in Plainfield, N.J. He retired as a division president who oversaw specialty chemicals, polymers and composites.
After Union Carbide, he started International Chemical and Polymers Co. a Connecticut-based business that he ran about 15 years. His daughter, who plans to write a book about her father, sees his life in stages.
"The early years were to create a happy, loving environment for his family and to be a chemical engineer who climbed the ranks at Union Carbide," she said. "The second part was really the time he started talking to people outside the family about the Holocaust. Enough time had passed, he had grieved enough and he knew nothing was going to happen to him."
Additional survivors include his wife, Renee Edelsohn Szabo of Dunwoody; a son, Dr. Stephen Szabo of Sandy Springs; and eight grandchildren.
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