MOUNT VERNON — Bill Morgan, a Holocaust survivor who fled Poland, immigrated to the United States and spent a year in Cedar Rapids under the sponsorship of Jewish community leaders, will speak at Cornell on Wednesday, April 13, at 11 a.m. in Hedges Conference Room of The Commons.
Morgan, a Texas businessman who helped establish the Holocaust Museum Houston, will speak on “Living Longer Than Hate: The Personal Reflections of a Holocaust Survivor.” Admission is free.
He is also scheduled to lecture in Cedar Rapids on Tuesday, April 12, at 11 a.m. at Kirkwood Community College, 234 Cedar Hall, and at 1:30 p.m. at Jefferson High School; Wednesday, April 13, at 7:30 p.m. at Mount Mercy College, Cherry Heritage Hall; and Thursday, April 14, at 10 a.m. at Washington High School and at 1:15 p.m. at Coe College, Hickok Hall’s Kesler Room. Morgan will deliver the Yom Hashoah service Thursday night at Community of Christ Church in Hiawatha.
Morgan was one of seven children in a poor Jewish family in the Ukraine, part of Poland at the onset of World War II. All of the Jews in his village were sent to the Stanislawow ghetto. As a teen, he was forced to dig graves for Jews awaiting execution. One day he fled, leaving his family behind, and posed as a Christian under assumed names to find jobs. At war’s end, he left Poland, lived for four years in Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1949. He was brought to Cedar Rapids under the sponsorship of downtown shoe store owner Sam Cohen and other Jewish community leaders. He stayed a year, selling shoes and teaching himself English.
In 1950 he landed in Houston, and a decade later he founded a construction company. The Morgan Group Inc. became a multistate, multimillion-dollar housing construction company.
Morgan is intensely dedicated to keeping the remembrance message alive. He self-published a book in 1997, “Living Longer Than Hate,” and played a fundamental role in establishing the Holocaust Museum Houston. He raised funds for the museum and his company helped build the structure.
Morgan’s visit to eastern Iowa is sponsored by the Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund, Cedar Rapids’ Jewish-Christian Dialogue Group and Cornell’s Chaplain’s Office, German Club and Cornell Hillel.
