April 8, 2010

Holocaust survivor to speak at Morningside College on April 15 

Renata Zajdman, who was one of thousands of Jewish children smuggled out of the Warsaw ghetto during Germany’s occupation of Poland in World War II, will recount her experiences as a Holocaust survivor during a lecture at 10 a.m. on Thursday, April 15, in the Yockey Family Community Room in Morningside College’s Olsen Student Center, 3609 Peters Avenue. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Zajdman, now a resident of Montreal, Canada, escaped from the Warsaw ghetto when she was 11 years old. She was captured by the Nazis and escaped three times. At the age of 14 she was captured again. Because she was carrying forged papers that said she was 17 and a Christian, the Nazis sent her to a slave labor camp in Germany instead of to a concentration camp.

The U.S. Army liberated Zajdman in 1945, and she made her way back to Poland and a displaced person’s camp. In 1948, she settled in Montreal.

Zajdman’s appearance at Morningside College is part of Sioux City’s Tolerance Week, April 12-16, sponsored by the Gerald L. and Kathleen A. Weiner Foundation.