Holocaust survivor Halina Peabody will speak at the University of Lynchburg at 7 p.m. Wednesday, November 13, in Memorial Ballroom, Hall Campus Center. The lecture is free and open to the public.
The lecture is co-sponsered by the Westover Honors College and the Holocaust Education Foundation of Central Virginia. Naomi Amos, a Westover Honors professor and a board member of the foundation, organized the talk.
“What is remarkable about any survivor I’ve met is their willingness to share and to believe in the goodness of human beings,” Amos said. “If you learn something from a survivor, hopefully you will learn that you should treat your fellow man and woman better, and the notion of ‘Never Again’ becomes paramount. It’s not just a phrase; It’s about not being apathetic, it’s about speaking out when there are reasons to speak out.”
Peabody was born in Krakow, Poland in 1932. She was nine years old when Nazi soldiers threatened her life and the lives of everyone around her, which forced her family to go into hiding and flee the only home she had known.
Peabody immigrated to the United States in 1968. Today, at 87, she volunteers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, sharing her story though the museum’s lecture program.