UMD News

Director of Public Relations:
Susan Beasy Latto, slatto@d.umn.edu
315 Darland Administration Bldg.
1049 University Drive
Duluth, MN 55812
(218) 726-8830 Cell: (218) 348-5688
Fax: (218) 726-7413

April 1, 2002

Contact:
Susan Beasy Latto, Director of Public Relations 218-726-8830
Deborah Petersen-Perlman, Chair, Baeumler-Kaplan Commemoration Committee 218-726-7528

Baeumler-Kaplan Holocaust Commemoration Events will be held at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) during the week of April 15-18. The events focus on the experiences of child survivors of the Holocaust. All presentations are free and open to the public (there is a $30 charge for the workshop).

KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Marion Blumenthal Lazan will present the ninth annual Baeumler-Kaplan Holocaust Memorial Lecture at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, April 17, in the Kirby Student Center Ballroom, UMD campus. Lazan was born in a small town in Germany in 1934, the year following Kristallnacht, a pivotal moment in the history of the murderous campaign of anti-semitism. She has co-authored a children's memoir of her experience entitled "Four Perfect Pebbles." Her talk is a first-hand account of the Blumenthal family's life in Germany from events preceding Kristallnacht to imprisonment in concentration camps and eventually liberation in April of 1945.

OTHER EVENTS
Monday, April 15, a sales event to raise funds for the Baeumler-Kaplan Holocaust Endowment will be held at Barnes and Noble in the Miller Hill Mall in Duluth. Lazan will read passages from "Four Perfect Pebbles," talk to visitors and autograph copies of her book.

Tuesday, April 16, the Academy-award winning film, "Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport," will be shown at 7 p.m in 90 Bohannon Hall on the UMD campus. A discussion with Professors Alexis Pogorelskin, History Department, UMD and Karl Bahm, History Department, University of Wisconsin-Superior (UWS), will follow the film. Lazan will also be present to make comments.

Thursday, April 18, a brown bag presentation, entitled "Reflections of Life & Death: Remains of Jewish Life, the Ghettoes and the Death Camps in Eastern Europe," will be given by Prof. Bahm at noon in the Tweed Lecture Gallery on the UMD campus.

WORKSHOP
Thursday, April 18, from 6-8 p.m. in the Rotunda of the UMD library, Carol Wirtschafter, formerly of the Minnesota Jewish Community Relations Council, will lead a workshop on selecting literature of the Holocaust for Young People. Registration is required. Workshop fee is $30. Contact: pnuhring@d.umn.edu; 218 726-8361.