MOUNT VERNON — Elane Geller, a Holocaust survivor who as a child was interned at the Bergen-Belsen death camp in Nazi Germany, will speak at Cornell College on Wednesday, April 26, at 11 a.m. in Hedges Conference Room of The Commons. Admission is free.
Geller was 4 years old when she and her father were taken by force to the town square in their small community in Poland. She and her father watched as the Nazis shot and killed many people, including Geller’s elderly grandparents and her mother.
The Nazis then separated Geller from many in her family and took her to a series of camps in Poland. One of those internment camps was the infamous Bergen-Belsen, where an older girl named Anne Frank was also held and eventually executed. When Geller was 9 years old, she was rescued from the camp by British soldiers.
Geller did not speak out about her experiences for many years due to the horrible memories. “Revisionists arose that tried to say the Holocaust did not happen. I share my scars because of those revisionists,” Geller has said.
Today, Geller is a representative of the outreach program of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. She travels across the country sharing her experiences with others so they can understand the effects of discrimination.
She is also scheduled to speak in Cedar Rapids on Tuesday, April 25, at 11 a.m. at Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Hall Room 234, and at 1:30 p.m. at Kennedy High School; Wednesday, April 26, at 1:30 p.m. at Xavier High School and at 7 p.m. at Mount Mercy College, Cherry Heritage Hall; and Thursday, April 27, at 10 a.m. at Washington High School and at 1:15 p.m. at Coe College, Kesler Lecture Hall, Hickok Hall. Geller will deliver the Yom Hashoah service Tuesday night at First Lutheran Church in Cedar Rapids.
Geller’s visit to eastern Iowa is sponsored by the Thaler Holocaust Memorial Fund and Cornell’s Chaplain’s Office, German Club and Cornell Hillel.
