Holocaust Survivor Lecture March 28

For 70 years, Holocaust survivor Michael Bornstein chose to stay silent about his story. 

Now he’s choosing to speak out, and people can hear his story during Cornell College’s Holocaust Survivor Lecture on Monday, March 28 in the Hall-Perrine Room of the Thomas Commons and or via livestream on the college’s YouTube page. The 6:30 p.m. lecture is free and open to the public and will be followed by a book signing. 

Borenstein often recalls how he spotted the photo of his 4-year-old self on book covers, museum walls, and even in news footage. Yet he was nervous about stepping forward to identify himself as the boy in the footage from Auschwitz because there was so much he could not remember. 

Then a document was discovered at a museum in Israel that revealed a stunning detail about his survival. Together with his daughter, Debbie Bornstein Holinstat, a broadcast news producer who started her career in Iowa in the 1990s, they began to dig for more information and planned to write a book. But even they never guessed the family secrets they would uncover as they researched their book, “Survivors Club,” published in 2017. 

Now, armed with new information about his survival, and against a backdrop of rising antisemitic crimes worldwide, Bornstein and Holinstat will share what they’ve learned. 

The event is sponsored by The Thaler Holocaust Committee in conjunction with the Cornell Chaplain & Spiritual Life Office.