Two recently published memoirs – The Shame of Survival: Working Through a Nazi Childhood by Ursula Mahlendorf and Maria’s Story: Childhood Memories of the Holocaust by Maria Segal – convey very different experiences of childhood during World War II.
The authors will share and discuss stories from their memoirs at a program from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, April 21, in Owens Science Hall, located near the intersection of Summit and Cretin avenues on the St. Paul campus of the University of St. Thomas.
The program, “Stories of Serving and Surviving the Nazis,” is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning at St. Thomas and St. John’s University.
Mahlendorf is professor emerita of German, Slavic and Semitic Studies at the University of Catlifornia, Santa Barbara, where she also served as associate dean of the College of Letters and Science. She drew on her experiences and on research in teaching about how Germans deal with their Nazi past.
Segal is a docent for the “Portraits of Survival” permanent exhibition in Santa Barbara, Calif. One of the 37 Santa Barbara Holocaust survivors profiled in the exhibit, Segal was a small child when the Nazis invaded her home country of Poland in 1939. She was the only member of her family to survive the Holocaust and speaks to many groups about her experiences during and after World War II.
More information about the April 21 program is available on the Center for Interfaith Learning Web site.