TH UR SDA Y , F E B R U A R Y 16, 2017
COUNTY WIDE YOUR HOME AND FAMILY NEWS FROM ALL OF KENDALL COUNTY
KendallCountyNow.com
Unforgettable history lesson Holocaust survivor speaks to students, public at Plano Middle School By TONY SCOTT tscott@kendallcountynow.com Plano Middle School students recently received a history lesson they are likely never to forget. Marion Blumenthal Lazan, 82, a survivor of the notorious Nazi concentration camp BergenBelsen, spoke to students and community members on Wednesday, Feb. 8, about her experiences as a child living through the Holocaust, and provided a chilling reminder that it is up to us to never let it happen again. Lazan began speaking about the Holocaust in 1979 and has written a memoir of her experiences called “Four Perfect Pebbles.” She has also been the subject of a documentary, “Marion’s Triumph.” Lazan’s father, Walter, ran a shoe store in the small town of Bremen, Germany, and she lived with her brother, parents and grandparents above the store. In September 1935, Adolf Hitler introduced the Nuremberg Laws, when Lazan was younger than a year old. “Jews were not allowed into theaters, into parks, or into swimming pools,” Lazan said. “All public schools were closed to Jewish children. Then there was the evening curfew for the Jews. Jews were only allowed to shop during specific hours of the day, and nonJews were not allowed to shop in Jewish-owned stores. Non-Jews were just not allowed to associate with Jewish people.” Lazan said it was after the Nuremberg Laws were passed that her parents decided to leave the country. Her grandparents, however, did not see the need. “These restrictions went on and on, and it was then that my parents made arrangements to leave the country,” she said. “My grandparents, who were in their late 70s and ill, refused to leave their home. They could not un-
Tony Scott - tscott@kendallcountynow.com
Marion Blumenthal Lazan holds up the gold star she had to wear as a Jew in Germany in the 1930s. Lazan, a survivor of the Nazi concentration camp BergenBelsen, spoke to students and community members on Feb. 8 at Plano Middle School. derstand the urgency or the necessity of doing so. My grandparents passed away in 1938 within 11 days of each other, and soon thereafter, we received our necessary papers for our emigration to America.” In November 1938, Kristallnacht, known as the “Night of Broken Glass,” where Nazis and their sympathizers smashed the
windows of Jewish storefronts and caused other damage, set off an even more aggressive anti-Semitic campaign, she said. “This was the beginning of a massive pogrom against the Jews in Germany,” she said. “A massive verbal and physical assault against all German Jews. In reality, this was the beginning of the Holocaust.”
Lazan said the family was forced to sell their home and business for a fraction of their worth, and in January 1939, they left Germany for Holland to prepare for their move to the United States. They lived in Westerbork, a camp in Holland for Jewish refugees, to await their departure date. “In May of 1940, just one month before our planned depar-
ture date, the Germans invaded Holland and we were trapped,” she said. “All of our belongings, which were about to be loaded aboard ships, were burned and destroyed as the harbor of Rotterdam was bombed.” Lazan said that the conditions at the camp were fine at first,
See SURVIVOR, page 6