In 1933, just after Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power, Thomas's Jewish parents moved from Germany to Czechoslovakia. Thomas's father had worked as a banker in Germany, and then bought a small hotel in the Slovakian town of Lubochna. Many of his father's friends in Germany came to Czechoslovakia to escape the Nazi government's unfair policies and stayed at the hotel.

1933-39: Slovak soldiers who had sided with Hitler took over our hotel in late 1938. We fled to Zilina, a nearby city, and lived there until after I turned 5. Then, my father took us across the border into Poland. On September 1, 1939, we boarded a train heading for a boat that would take us to England. But the German army invaded Poland that day, and our train was bombed. We joined other refugees, and walked north to Kielce.