While taking college courses after retirement from his medical career, Dr. David Thaler was struck by the lack of awareness about the Holocaust among Iowa’s college students. Dr. Thaler, whose father, sister and other family members were victims of Nazi atrocities, was determined to make Holocaust education available through the local academic community. Dr. Thaler and his wife Joan established the Thaler Holocaust Education Trust to help assure that the inhumanity of the Nazi concentration camps is never forgotten, and hopefully, never repeated.

The David and Joan Thaler Holocaust Education Trust was established in 1995 by Dr. David and Joan Thaler to provide support for education about the Holocaust to residents and students at the local colleges and high schools in Linn County, Iowa. Typically, the Thaler Holocaust Education Trust brings in a Holocaust survivor or other speaker each year to speak at local colleges and high schools. We have sponsored courses at local colleges, and also sponsor additional Iowa Holocaust related events and speakers.

David Thaler was born and raised in Lwow, Poland in 1913. He received his medical education in France, at Paris University. He immigrated to the United States in 1938, after the death of his mother. He learned English and passed the medical boards while serving as an ambulance attendant at Kings County Hospital in New York. Later, he served in the United States Army in World War II. He practiced medicine in Cedar Rapids until his retirement in 1985, and passed away in 2000.

Joan Thaler was raised in St. Louis and attended Washington University. She and David were married in 1965. In 1974, she graduated from the University of Iowa with a Masters degree in social work, and she practiced at the Abbe Mental Health Center for 34 years. After Joan’s retirement, she remained active in the community until she passed away in 2021.

As the years pass, there are fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors to tell their own story, but with the help of the Thaler Holocaust Education Trust, their stories will live on in our community.