Editors: Please include information on reservations in any media mention of this event, as Noémi Ban's talks typically are full and people in the past have shown up without reservations, expecting to be admitted.
Contact: Ray Wolpow, Director, Northwest Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Ethnocide Education, nwche@wwu.edu or Center for Education, Equity and Diversity, (360) 650-3827.
BELLINGHAM - Noémi Ban, an award-winning teacher and survivor of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, will share her story at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 25, in Artzen 100 at Western Washington University.
Ban will speak about how she lost most of her family and why she shares her story in hopes that current and future generations will prevent future genocides.
"Your generation may be the last one able to listen to a survivor," Ban has told WWU students.
There are 400 reservations available for her hour-long talk, which is free and open to the public. A reservation is required to attend. Reservations, which go quickly, may be requested through the Northwest Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Ethnocide Education by e-mailing nwche@wwu.edu.
Ban's one hour talk will be followed by a 30-minute question-and-answer period and then a 30-minute book and DVD signing. Her talk is sponsored by the NWCHGEE and the Woodring College of Education's Center for Education, Equity and Diversity.
"I would hope that people who come would think about what questions might be asked by future generations in 40 or 50 years, and that they would ask those questions now," said Ray Wolpow, director of NWCHGEE.
The audience may write questions for Ban on note cards and submit them to Wolpow, or submit questions online at www.wce.wwu.edu/Resources/NWCHE/.
Ban retired as a teacher in 1989, so she could devote her time to educating students about the Holocaust. She is a recipient of the 1998 Golden Apple Award and has spoken almost 300 times in the past three years alone.
Ban authored "Sharing is Healing: A Holocaust Survivor's Story," which tells how she survived the Holocaust and eventually returned to Auschwitz-Birkenau. There she and Wolpow said Kaddish, a Jewish prayer, to honor Ban's family.
"My Name is Noémi," a film biography of Ban, recently debuted at WWU's Performing Art Center in January. The film was produced by Western Associate Professor of Theater Jim Lortz, and tells the story of then Noémi Schonberger, who was taken from her home in Debrecen, Hungary to Auschwitz in 1944.
For more information about this event, contact the NWCHGEE at nwche@wwu.edu or telephone WWU's Center for Education, Equity and Diversity at (360) 650-3827.
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