Edith Eger, a survivor of the Holocaust, will be the featured speaker when the Cal State San Bernardino University Diversity Committee presents the next Conversations on Diversity program on Tuesday, May 16.
“Surviving the Holocaust” will take place at noon at the Santos Manuel Student Union. The program is free and open to the public; parking at the university is $6.
A native of Hungary, Edith Eva Eger was just a young teenager in 1944 when she experienced one of the worst evils the human race has ever known.
As a Jew living in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, she and her family were sent to Auschwitz, the infamous death camp in Poland. Her parents lost their lives there. Toward the end of the war, Edith and other prisoners were moved to Austria.
On May 4, 1945, a young American soldier noticed her hand moving slightly amongst a number of dead bodies. He quickly summoned medical help and brought her back from the brink of death.
After the war, Edith moved to Czechoslovakia where she met the man she would marry. In 1949 they moved to the United States.
In 1969 she received her degree in psychology from the University of Texas, El Paso. She then pursued her doctoral internship at the William Beaumont Army Medical Center at Fort Bliss, Texas.
The CSUSB University Diversity Committee began presenting the Conversations on Diversity speaker series in spring 2005. Presented three times per year (fall, winter and spring quarters), the event sub-committee strives to bring three renowned speakers to campus on a specific topic of diversity, including but not limited to, race, ethnicity, religion, women’s issues, gender and sexual orientation.
For more information about or accommodations at the Conversations on Diversity series, contact Twillea Evans-Carthen at (909) 537-5138, or Mary Texeira at (909) 537-5547. Also visit the Conversations on Diversity website, follow it on Facebook, or email organizers at diversity@csusb.edu.
For more information about Cal State San Bernardino, contact the university’s Office of Strategic Communication at (909) 537-5007 and visit news.csusb.edu.