Administration

Communications

Holocaust survivor, award-winning author featured speaker at annual C-SC Kraus Lecture
Tuesday, March 15, 2011

CANTON, Mo. – Holocaust survivor and award winning author Marion Blumenthal Lazan will be the featured speaker March 28, 2011 during the annual Kraus Lecture.

Marion Blumenthal Lazan was born in Bremen, Germany. Following Hilter’s rise to power, the Blumenthal family – father, mother, Marion and her brother, Albert – were trapped in Nazi Germany. The family managed to escape to Holland, but soon after Holland, too, was occupied by the Nazis. For the next six and half years, the Blumenthals were forced to live in refugee, transit and prisons camps that included Westerbrook 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 for Marion, Albert and their mother, Ruth, to obtain the necessary papers to travel to the United States.

Lazan graduated from Peoria (Ill.) Central High School and attended Bradley University. She went on to work in the medical field and do volunteer work and community service. She now lives with her husband, Nathaniel, in Hewlett, N.Y. They have three married children and nine grandchildren.

Lazan began speaking publicly about her Holocaust experience in 1979. Her memoir, “Four Perfect Pebbles,” was published in 1996 and recalls the devastating years that shaped her childhood. “Four Perfect Pebbles” has received numerous awards, including Notable Children’s Book in the Field of Social Studies from NCSS/CBC; Best of the Bunch from Sydney Taylor Award Committee/Association of Jewish Libraries; IRA Young Adults’ Choice; Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Award; and Peoria Reads 2004 for Middle Schools among other awards.

Lazan’s moving first-hand account of Blumenthal family’s life will be presented Monday, March 28 at beginning at 7:30 p.m. in Merillat Chapel inside the Robert W. Brown Performing Arts Center on the C-SC campus. Lazan will hold a book signing following the lecture. The Kraus Lecture is a part of C-SC Academic and Cultural Events (ACE) program and is free and open to the public

The Kraus Lecture was established by Joe W. Kraus in memory of his wife, Kathryn Elizabeth (Betsy) Curtright Kraus. Joe Kraus earned an undergraduate degree in English from C-SC in 1938 and an undergraduate degree in library science in 1939. Betsy Kraus attended C-SC from 1935-1937.