Holocaust Survivor and Author

Wednesday, April 5, the Baeumler Kaplan Holocaust Commemoration committee will host Holocaust survivor and author Marion Blumenthal Lazan at 7 p.m. in the 4th Floor Rotunda of the Kathryn A. Martin Library on the University of Minnesota Duluth campus. This free event is open to the public.

Her book, Four Perfect Pebbles, co-authored with Lila Perl, chronicles her family’s horrific struggles in Europe and their eventual new life in America. Lazan has given talks throughout the United States, Germany and Israel.

When the Nazis came to power, the Blumenthal family was living in Germany. They escaped to Holland, but after Holland fell to the Nazis, the family was forced to spend the next six and a half years in prison camps, including Westerbork in Holland and Bergen-Belsen in Germany. The family survived the camps, but her father died of typhus just after the liberation. Following three more years living in transit and refugee camps, Marion, her mother, and brother were finally able to travel to the U.S. They settled in Peoria, Illinois.