Survival Of The Holocaust

WOODBURY — Renee Glassner was one of the lucky ones. In a talk sponsored by Brownstein Jewish Family Service on Sunday, September 24, she will tell the remarkable story of how her immediate family of five managed to survive the Holocaust. The program takes place at 10 am at the office of the Federation: Jewish Communities of Western CT at 73 Main Street South in Woodbury.

Growing up in Poland, Renee Glassner had a happy childhood until the fall of 1939 when Nazi Germany occupied Poland and the persecution of Jews began. She was barred from attending school, and later she and her family were some of the 8,000 Jews forced to live in the ghetto in Losice.

In the summer of 1942, the entire population of the ghetto was taken to Treblinka to be gassed. Renee and her family hid in the attic of their house and later proceeded to seek relief and shelter from the outside. For two years they struggled to survive, often separated from each other. They were liberated by the Red Army in the summer of 1944. But when they returned to their hometown, they found that only 16 people had survived the slaughter.

Renee Glassner will talk about how her family survived and later rebuilt their lives after the Holocaust. Her story has been recorded by Yale’s Fortunoff Video Archives for Holocaust Testimonies, the world’s first survivor video-testimony project. In addition her story is one of the first-person accounts of 27 witnesses in a newly released book entitled Witness: Voices from the Holocaust.

Renee Glassner is a recently retired foreign language teacher who resides in Hamden with her husband. The public is invited to hear her courageous story, but reservations are necessary, as seating is limited. Call Debby Horowitz, Brownstein Jewish Family Service Program Director, at 263-5121 extension 304.