Josh Green

KING 5 News

SEATAC, Wash. – An 86-year-old Holocaust survivor who never had the chance to get his high school diploma will soon have one courtesy of a Seattle-area school district.

Henry Friedman will receive his honorary diploma from the Kent School District on Wednesday.

"I always felt something missing in my life, especially when I went to my children's graduations, then graduating from college," Friedman told KING 5 News. "I don't have the words in my vocabulary to describe what it really feels like."

Chris Loftis, Chief of Communications for the Kent School District, said administrators are honoring Friedman after he volunteered his time educating students for more than 20 years.

"How many hundreds and hundreds of students have heard his story and have been inspired by that story," Loftis said. "Education is more than reading, writing and arithmetic. Education is about learning about the community of humanity. Henry Friedman is one of the best instructors we could possibly have in that community."

Students hear first-hand how Friedman and his family survived the Holocaust. Two Christian families risked their lives by allowing the Friedmans to live in a barn for 18 months.

"I come from a city that had a Jewish population of 10,000," he said. "There were less than 100 of us that survived."

Friedman often uses his story to teach students how important education is.

"We had properties in Europe. Most of it was lost. We had money. Most of that was lost. But I was able to carry through borders whatever teachers had put through my head," he told a freshman history class at Kent Mountain View Academy.

"Nobody can take that away from you."