AMES, Iowa -- Author and holocaust survivor Marion Blumenthal Lazan will speak at Iowa State University on Monday, Feb. 8.
"Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story" will be at 7 p.m. in the Memorial Union Great Hall. The talk is free and open to the public.
Lazan is co-author of a book by the same name that provides a moving firsthand account of the Blumenthal family’s life in Germany and Holland under the Nazis. The memoir recounts the events preceding Kristallnacht to imprisonment in concentration camps — including the notorious Bergen-Belsen — to liberation in April 1945.
Lazan was 11 years old and weighed 35 pounds when the family finally gained its freedom. It took three more years of struggle and waiting before they obtained the necessary papers and boarded a ship for the United States. Their story is one of horror and hardship, but it is also a story of courage, hope and the will to survive.
Lazan travels the world to bear witness as the last generation of Holocaust survivors. Her memoir is in its 12th printing and is taught in schools worldwide. The PBS documentary, "Marion's Triumph: Surviving History's Nightmare" is narrated from her point of view, making it a unique Holocaust documentary that speaks to a young generation. It received Editor's Choice award from the American Library Association's Booklist.
The presentation is co-sponsored by the Ames Jewish Congregation, Health Promotion Club, Department of History, ISU Hillel, Jewish Federation, Kawaler Foundation Fund for Judaic Studies and the Committee on Lectures, which is funded by Student Government.
More information on ISU lectures is available online, or by calling 515-294-9935.