Posted on Mar 23, 1998

Schenectady, N.Y. (March 23, 1998) – Shelly Shapiro, director of the Holocaust Survivors and Friends Education Center, will lead a discussion after the American premiere of the film Pour Memoire, a documentary on the work of Serge and Beate Klarsfeld on Thursday, April 2, at 8 p.m. in Reamer Campus Center Auditorium at Union College.

The program — part of Lessons for Humanity, a series of Holocaust remembrance events through April 23 at Union College — is free and open to the public.

The Klarsfelds are called “Nazi hunters” for bringing Klaus Barbie and others to justice — and for their major role in the trial now making headlines in France of a former cabinet minister.

But Serge and Beate Klarsfeld have devoted themselves not just to capturing the perpetrators of Nazi terror but to remembering their victims. Thus, Serge Klarsfeld's most recent book, French Children of the Holocaust, is devoted to children sent from France to the death camps. A book “borne of my obsession that these children will not be forgotten,” according to Klarsfeld, it contains 2,500 photos and short biographies of the children.

Residents of France, the Klarsfelds came to Union March 15 to open the exhibit based on Mr. Klarsfeld's book. The exhibit runs through April 23 in Union's Nott Memorial. Shelly Shapiro is educational consultant for the traveling show, which is being viewed this month in Union's Nott Memorial by thousands of area schoolchildren.

Serge is a Jew who as a child just missed being sent to Auschwitz. Beate is the daughter of a soldier in Hitler's army. Together they have devoted their lives to not letting the world forget the Nazi era.

Lessons for Humanity: French Children of the Holocaust – A Memorial Exhibition and Of Light Amidst the Darkness – The Danish Rescue is presented by Union College and the Holocaust Survivors and Friends Education Center. Major support is provided by an anonymous donor from the Union College family.