FRANKFORT, Ky. – The stories of Holocaust survivors who now live in Kentucky are the focus of a noontime presentation on Wednesday, Nov. 4, at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in Frankfort.
Arwen Donahue, former program coordinator in the Department of Oral History at the United States Holocaust Museum, and Rebecca Gayle Howell, photographer and faculty member at Morehead State University, will lead the discussion, which is based upon their new book, "This is Home Now: Kentucky’s Holocaust Survivors Speak."
The presentation is part of the Kentucky Historical Society’s (KHS) Highlighting History series and is free and open to the public. Visitors are invited to bring their own lunches and enjoy a complimentary dessert.
According to an excerpt from "This is Home Now," thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors immigrated to the United States from Europe at the end of Word War II. Most settled in large cities, but some found their way to rural areas, including Kentucky.
The authors used oral histories from a Kentucky Oral History Commission and United States Holocaust Museum project to help document their stories. The Kentucky Oral History Commission is administered by KHS and interviews from this project can be accessed in KHS’s Martin F. Schmidt Research Library.
According to the excerpt, the authors’ book focuses on "the survivors’ lives after their liberation from Nazi concentration camps, illuminating their reasons for settling in Kentucky, their initial reactions to American culture, and their reflections on integrating into rural American life."
The KHS Highlighting History series includes History Speaks!, Food for Thought and the KHS Distinguished Lecture, and offers guests an opportunity to explore a wide variety of historical topics.
For more information on Highlighting History, including the full Fall 2009/Winter 2010 schedule, visit: http://history.ky.gov/sub.php?pageid=29".
