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Holocaust Survivor’s Memoir Book Reading + Reception IN PERSON + ONLINE

Saturday, January 28, 2023 6 Sh'vat 5783

5:30 PM - 7:30 PM

JCOGS invites our members and the public to convene for the United Nations-designated International Holocaust Remembrance Day to honor and remember Holocaust survivor Erika Hecht as well as the other survivors and victims of the Holocaust, both Jewish and non-Jewish. 

Copies of Erika Hecht’s haunting, moving memoir will be available for free to participants, as well as during JCOGS office hours (M, W, Th 10-3, F 12-5) and during upcoming events and services.

The Holocaust commemoration will include opening remarks by Rabbi David, followed by a program in which Erika’s daughter, JCOGS member Marion Hecht, will highlight readings and discuss excerpts from Erika’s recently published memoir. Online participants can join from 5:30-6:45PM.  A light collation and reception, including viewing of Vermont Holocaust Memorial’s traveling Holocaust exhibit, will follow.

The program is sponsored in cooperation with the Hecht family, Vermont Holocaust Memorial, and East End Press. 

Erika Hecht, a Vermont resident of several decades, passed away on December 20th, 2022. She is remembered as a creative woman who learned and adapted from her early traumatic life experiences as a young child in Hungary during World War 2. Erika demonstrated extraordinary courage, attending medical school in Austria after the war, followed by her move to Montreal, where she became a well-known interior designer. Erika’s love for Stowe brought her to JCOGS as a founding member, and where she shared her Holocaust survival story with local youth. Last year, Erika completed her memoir, “Don’t Ask My Name: A Hidden Child’s Tale of Survival” (East End Press).

The United Nations General Assembly has designated January 27—the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camps—as “International Holocaust Remembrance Day.” On that annual day of commemoration, the UN urges every member state to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism, and to take action through effective educational programs that can help prevent future genocides.

The Vermont Holocaust Memorial, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, works to advance Holocaust education throughout Vermont. Further information can be found at: https://www.holocaustmemorial-vt.org/

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