MOUNT VERNON — Holocaust survivor Marga Randall will lecture Wednesday, April 10, at Cornell College on life under Hitler’s rule, returning to her hometown in Germany to seek reconciliation and Holocaust memories among older and younger generations.
Her talk, “Reflections of the Holocaust and Beyond,” will be at 11:10 a.m. in King Chapel. Admission is free and a book signing will follow the lecture.
In the 1930s, Randall was expelled from school in Schermbeck, Germany, because she was a Jew. She survived the “Kristallnacht” — the night of shattering glass — on Nov. 9, 1938, when Nazis destroyed homes and synagogues and killed many Jews. In 1939 she fled to Berlin and lived for two years in semi-hiding until she acquired legal papers and escaped in a locked train under heavy guard. She traveled to Lisbon, Portugal, and boarded a small converted cattle boat for America, where she settled in Pittsburgh.
She learned English, went to school, worked, married and raised three children. She first returned to Germany in 1982, and since then her life’s work has become Holocaust and interfaith dialogue at synagogues, churches and schools in the United States, Israel and Germany. In 1998 she published a book, “How Beautiful We Once Were: A Remembrance of the Holocaust and Beyond.”
“Through lectures and sermons, I hope to create a better understanding and cooperation among groups with different backgrounds,” she says.
Her presentation at Cornell is sponsored by the Chaplain’s Office, the Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund, the Jewish-Christian Dialogue Group of Cedar Rapids and Quest: Interfaith Exploration & Understanding.
Randall also is scheduled to speak in Cedar Rapids on Friday, April 5, at 7:30 p.m. at Temple Judah; Sunday, April 7, at 10 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church; Monday, April 8, at 12:20 p.m. in Iowa Hall, Kirkwood Community College, and at 7 p.m. in Cherry Heritage Hall, Mount Mercy College; and Tuesday, April 9, at 9:30 a.m. in Kesler Auditorium, Coe College, and at 7:30 p.m. at St. Matthew’s Church for the Yom Hashoah Service.