Noted Holocaust survivor Marion Blumenthal Lazan will be telling her story at Calhoun Middle-High School tonight at 6 p.m. for the public, earlier in the day for students.
"Hearing a Holocaust survivor speak is a rare opportunity for our community," said principal Karen Kirby.
"Our 8th grade students are studying the Holocaust and reading a memoir "Four Perfect Pebbles," co-written by Lazan," Kirby said.
Her memoir recalls the devastating years that shaped her childhood. Following Hitler's rise to power, the Blumenthal family - father, mother, Marion, and her brother, Albert - were trapped in Nazi Germany.
They managed eventually to get to Holland, but soon thereafter it was occupied by the Nazis. For the next six and a half years, the Blumenthal's were forced to live in refugee, transit, and prison camps that included Westerbork in Holland, and the notorious Bergen-Belsen in Germany.
Though they all survived the camps, Walter Blumenthal, the father, succumbed to typhus just after liberation. It took three more years of struggle and waiting before Marion, Albert, and their mother Ruth, at last obtained the necessary papers and boarded a ship for the United States.
The story that will be told is one of horror and hardship, but it is also a story of courage, hope, and the will to survive.
"We often tripped and fell over the dead in the concentration camps, death was everywhere," said Ms. Lazan. From the age of four to ten, she was in a concentration camp, where she says she picked lice out of her hair and urinated on herself to prevent frostbite.
"Mark your calendars and join us to hear this powerful and personal experience," said Kirby.
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