Mid-Summer Newsletter 2009

Although my summer speaking schedule is fairly light, I have had a few venues this summer, with 2 more talks scheduled, one at a summer camp this coming week, and the second, at the Glad Tidings Church in Reading, PA. There I will speak at both the Sunday morning service, and then that evening for a very special and important group called Christians United for Israel – CUFI.

But I would like to tell you, especially the teachers among you, about a unique venue where I presented 2 weeks ago in mid-town Manhattan. This seminar is for teachers from rural America, open by application to 25 teachers each summer. This was the third summer in which the seminar was offered.

The seminar is administered and conducted by the Holocaust Educators Network in conjunction with the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and Lehman College (CUNY). Dr. Sondra Perl, Professor of English and Urban Education at the Graduate Center and Lehman College, CUNY, leads the 10 day seminar.

Determined that her story and horrendous experiences be continued to be told long after her passing, Holocaust survivor Olga Lengyel established the Memorial Library Foundation to ensure the funding of this very special seminar.
Bereft of her entire family - husband, 2 sons, and parents, in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Olga Lengyel authored her memoir, aptly named Five Chimneys, Academy Chicago Publishers. Filled with her explicit eye-witness accounts and testimony of her own captivity, it also tells of the terrorized life that so many other innocent men, women and children were forced to endure prior to their eventual death in the gas chambers, and the burning of their bodies in the crematoria.

Application deadline for the 2010 summer seminar is January 15, 2010. Electronic submissions are strongly preferred.
For complete information, please go to the Holocaust Educators Network website atwww.holocausteducators.org

On another note, the New York State Regents, Department of Education, recently presented me with the 2008 Louis E. Yavner Award for the work I do in schools pertaining to Holocaust education and human rights. If my talks help young adults to have greater love, respect and tolerance towards one another, then I hope I will be able to continue my work for many more years to come.

Best wishes to all for an enjoyable and pleasant remaining summer.
Fondly,
Marion