Mathis Szykowski

FAIRVIEW — Mathis Szykowski died July 1, 2016, after a short illness at Fairview Hospital at the age of 90.

He was born Feb. 6, 1926, in Paris, France, to immigrant Jewish parents from Romania and what is now Poland. On June 14, 1940, as the Germans entered Paris, he was removed from school at the age of 14 and two years later he escaped into the south of France and worked mostly as a farm boy, but also in a bakery and as an apprentice mason, until the end of the war. Twenty-five members of his family had been murdered by the Nazis. Returning to Paris, he lived with relatives and was brought to the United States through an uncle's sponsorship in 1946. Soon after his arrival, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in Louisiana and on Kyushu Island during the occupation of Japan in Beppu.

Mathis returned via Seattle to New York City, where he spent the next 15 years, working as an offset pressman and often engaged in political activities. He began his education at Brooklyn College in 1958 at the age of 32. After his Ph.D from Standford University in 1965, he spent 30 years at Oberlin College teaching French languages and literature, including many classes of his own invention.

He spent his life engrossed by literature and the study of the Holocaust. He traveled widely throughout Europe and South Central and Southeast Asia. He became a passionate collector of French 18th century faience, a form of earthenware.

Mathis is survived by his children, Monique Mojica and Raphael Szykowski; their mother, Gloria Miguel; his grandson, Ehren Bear Thomas; his wife, Carol Graham; and his adoptive children, Sebastian Collett and Catherine Collett.

A celebration of his life will be held in the garden of the Oberlin Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 355 East Lorain St., at 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 30. Memorial contributions may be made to Doctors Without Borders.