Contact: Heath Fisackerly
STARKVILLE, Miss. – Mississippi State’s Student Association will host Holocaust survivor and chemist Inge Auerbacher next week as the organization’s featured speaker for the fall semester.
The author and inspirational speaker’s presentation will take place Tuesday [Oct. 23] at 7 p.m. in the Colvard Student Union’s Foster Ballroom. The event is free and open to all.
Born in Kippenheim, Germany, a small village located at the foot of the Black Forest in the southwestern portion of the country near France and Switzerland, Auerbacher was only 3 years old when her father and grandfather were arrested by the Nazis during Kristallnacht or “Night of Broken Glass.” They were sent to Dachau concentration camp and later released after receiving very bad treatment. Her family had to sell their home and move to Jebenhausen, Germany in 1939. As a 6 year old, she was forced to wear a yellow Star of David on her clothing and was only allowed to attend Jewish schools.
In August of 1942, Auerbacher and her family were deported to the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, where she lived from the age of 7 through 10 years. There, only one percent of child prisoners survived. The Soviet Army liberated Terezin on May 8, 1945, and Auerbacher and both her parents survived.
After immigrating to America in 1946, she fought health problems caused from malnutrition while in the concentration camp; however, she went on to graduate high school with honors and completed a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. She worked for more than 38 years as a chemist collaborating with prominent scientists in research and clinical work.
Auerbacher is the award-winning author of “I Am a Star-Child of the Holocaust,” “Beyond the Yellow Star to America,” “Running Against the Wind,” and “Finding Dr. Schatz – The Discovery of Streptomycin and A Life it Saved,” among others.
She has received several awards for her teaching on tolerance and human rights. She is the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the Louis E. Yavner Citizen Award. Auerbacher regularly lectures on the Holocaust through the eyes of a child survivor.
For more, visit www.ingeauerbacher.com.
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