(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — A Downers Grove man has been nominated for a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In his 98 years, Dr. Dieter Gruen has fled Nazi Germany, worked on the Manhattan Project and now is actively trying to solve the problems of climate change.
Illinois Congressman Sean Casten is the primary force behind the nomination of Gruen, who was born in 1922 in Germany. Casten says Gruen has a particularly “ego-free” way of recounting his early life.
“He got ‘beat up’ on the playground because the boys didn’t like the Jews, and his parents decided he needed to leave. So, they sent him to live with relatives in Little Rock, Arkansas,” Casten said.
“His parents were then sent to a concentration camp and somehow man aged to get out and reunited with him in 1939 in Chicago.”
Gruen ended up working on the Manhattan Project and then worked for nuclear non-proliferation.
“As far as I can tell, never lost hope and kept working to make the world a better place,” Casten said.
Now, Rep. Casten said, Dr. Gruen works every day to combat climate change.
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