CONTACT: Marion Blumenthal Lazan, (516) 374-5958;
Daniel P. Finney, (515) 271-2833, daniel.finney@drake.edu
Holocaust survivor Marion Blumenthal Lazan will tell her personal story in a speech at Drake University set for 7 p.m., Tuesday, March 14, in Bulldog Theater, Olmsted Center, 2875 University Ave.
Blumenthal Lazan is co-author of the award-winning book, “Four Perfect Pebbles,” which covers life in the concentration camps, liberation and, finally, starting life anew. The title comes from the author’s childhood quest to find four pebbles of almost exactly the same size and shape in hopes that assembling such a set of stones would mean that her immediate family would survive the Holocaust.
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 the Nazis occupied it. For the next six and a half years the Blumenthals 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 at last obtained the necessary papers and boarded ship for the United States.
Lazan describes her story as the story Anne Frank might have told had she lived. “It is a story of perseverance, determination, faith and, above all, hope,” she said.
The speech, which is sponsored by the Drake Center for Global Citizenship, is free and open to the public.
For more information on Blumenthal Lazan, visit http://www.fourperfectpebbles.com/.