Episode 71: Marion Blumenthal Lazan

Host Ed Sutkowski interviews Marion Blumenthal Lazan—a Holocaust survivor, 1953 Peoria High School graduate, and author of the memoir Four Perfect Pebbles.

Marion Blumenthal Lazan's success is one of survival - her own and her family's - mother, father and brother, Albert. Trapped in Hitler's Germany, they eventually fled to Holland but were soon caught in the Nazi web. For 6-½ years, they lived in refugee, transit and prison camps, including Holland's Westerbork and Germany's Bergen-Belsen. The latter is where Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, died.

While incarcerated with her family and all the while deprived of food, clothing and living essentials, Marion imagined her loved ones as what is now the tilte of her book, The Four Perfect Pebbles. If the pebbles did not die, her family would likewise endure. As a 10-year-old who weighted 35 lbs., Marion recalls stepping over the dead and dying, deprivation, oppression, indescribable sadness, and, finally, the ultimate joy of freedom. Six days before the British captured Bergen-Belsen, the family was placed above the "death train" destined for Auschwitz. Before reaching Auschwitz, the war ended and Russian troops freed the Blumenthals.

Marion has dedicated her life to communicate a message of love, respect and tolerance for all people. She has reached more than 200,000 individuals in the United States, Germany and Israel.