The Heschel School

Attorney Morton Katz was born on May 15, 1919 in Hartford, CT.  He graduated from the University of Connecticut, known as Connecticut College in 1939.  He then matriculated at Iowa State University to study chemistry at the graduate level.  He graduated from the masters program in just one year but realized he was unhappy in that career path. He was commissioned in the army reserve as a second Lieutenant in 1940.

After Pearl Harbor he was ordered to active duty and he reported to Fort Benning, GA in April of 1942. He served in combat operations in Italy, France, Belgium, and Germany with the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion.  After the 509th Battalion was "wiped out" in the Ardennes Campaign he joined the 505th Parachute Infantry of the legendary 82nd Airborne Division. He was involved in the ground assault at Venafro, Italy in November of 1943 and in the invasion of Anzio in January of 1944. He also fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Attorney Katz was later involved in the liberation of the Wobbelin Concentration Camp in Ludwigslust, Germany. He recalls that his division commander was so outraged at the conditions at the camp that his commander made the local populace march to the camp to view the bodies.  He then had them carry the dead to town and create a cemetery that still stands today.

After the war he went to law school at the University of Connecticut law school.  He married Shirley Dinerstein (Katz) in 1964.  He has two children, Rachel (Katz) Brunke born in 1967 and Naomi Katz Cohen born in 1971.  He has 3 grandchildren, Diane and Anne Brunke and Heschel student Tabitha Cohen.  He is still practicing law at the age 101.

Meet the Connecticut attorney who is still working as a public defender at 99 years old and says he will only retire 'when they carry me out of here'

Days away from his 100th birthday, Avon’s Morton Katz is thriving as a public defender in Hartford criminal court