About
Remembered best for his development of a foreign language instructional system known as the Michel Thomas Method, this Holocaust survivor and linguist opened a Beverly Hills, California school called the Polyglot Institute.
Before Fame
While studying at the University of Bordeaux and the Sorbonne, he became involved in the French Resistance movement of World War II and was subsequently sent to several Nazi concentration camps.
Trivia
He was the subject of a 1997 BBC documentary titled The Language Master.
Family Life
A native of Lodz, Poland, he was the son of Jewish textile factory owners who later died at Auschwitz. After immigrating to the United States, he married (and later divorced) a teacher named Alice Burns; the couple raised two children.
Associated With
A year before his death, he was awarded the Silver Star for his World War II-era work for the United States Army's Counter Intelligence Corps. Senators Bob Dole and John Warner presented him with the prestigious honor.
