Upcoming Event:
“A Tribute to Jack and Rochelle: Creating a Record of Holocaust
Survival" will be presented by Lawrence Sutton at 3:30 pm on Thursday,
December 1 in Montague 80 at UMD.
A reception and book-signing follows the presentation in the lobby of
the Marshall Performing Arts Center.
Lawrence Sutin and his parents, Jack and Rochelle Sutin, wrote Jack
and Rochelle: A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance, published in
1995 by Greywolf Press. Sutin, a Minnesota author and faculty member
at Hamline University, will present his parents' stories as resistance
fighters as well sharing insights on the collaborative undertaking.
"As a writer, I want to be able to focus not only on their story, but
on the process by which that story came to be written," Sutin said.
Jack and Rochelle Sutin, as Polish Jews, fled separately in 1942 from
their respective ghettos, where they had been relocated by theGermans. Each hid in the woods; and, after harrowing encounters with
anti-Semitic escaping Russian soldiers, Rochelle joined Jack's group
of Jewish partisans (resistance fighters). Although mere acquaintances
before the outbreak of war, Jack and Rochelle fell in love and
together fought in the resistance movement, enduring near-starvation,
disease and the constant threat of capture by Germans and Poles. They
hid in dank underground bunkers or camps, often unaware of the outside
world. After the war, the Sutins married and emigrated to the U.S.
The event is co-sponsored by the Royal D. Alworth, Jr. Institute for
International Studies (Alworth Institute).
For information contact
Associate Professor Alexis Pogorelskin, Department of History:
apogerel@d.umn.edu, 218-726-7548.