Stimson Middle School was very fortunate to have holocaust survivor Marion Blumenthal Lazan return to the school to share her awe-inspiring story with our eighth graders. Mrs. Lazan has been visiting Stimson for more than twenty years.  Now 90 years old, she continues to travel to schools across the tri-state area to tell the story of how she and her family spent six and a half years living under the Nazi German regime. 

Stimson Principal Michael Duggan explained that even though students learn about history from books, they need to realize that history is also real life. He shared, “This is a person who’s lived history. It’s important for kids to make that connection. It’s important for kids to realize…when we hear these stories that real people were impacted by these things.” 

Mrs. Lazan shared with students how they were forced to live in prison camps and refugee camps, including Westerbork in Holland and Bergen-Belsen in Germany. She described what she went through and witnessed all around her every day. She spoke about her family's living situation and how they were forced to live in overcrowded, dirty barracks infested with disease and lice. At times, she was malnourished because there was often very little to nothing for them to eat, sometimes all they had available was soup and a piece of bread. 

She witnessed people dying either from disease or at the hands of the Nazis. She lived in fear every day that either she or someone in her family would be the next one to die or be killed.  As a way of keeping her mind active, and in her own way having some control over keeping her family safe, the young Marion convinced herself that if she could always find four perfect pebbles, identical in color and shape, while imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen, her family would survive together.  “Four Perfect Pebbles” is the name of the book Mrs. Lazan wrote about her family’s ordeal.

The Blumenthal family was saved when the concentration camps were liberated in 1945 by the Allied forces fighting the Nazis and they were able to make it to America. Only weeks after liberation, her father sadly died from typhus, a disease that killed many. 

Mrs. Lazan told her Stimson audience how, even though she has shared this story countless times, it still isn’t easy to talk about.  She told students that it is important to “share my story or any of the Holocaust stories that you read and learn about, share with your friends, share with your relatives, someday share them with your child, and yes, even with your grandchildren…as difficult as it is, the heart of the Holocaust must be taught, must be studied, and kept alive.” 

She explained that she continues to tell her story to schools across the country because “each of us, each and every one of us must do everything in our power to prevent such hatred, such destruction, and such terror from reoccurring and can begin by having love, respect, and compassion towards one another.” Mrs. Lazan’s emotional visit to our eighth graders always wraps up with a line of students waiting to hug her as she comes off the stage. We thank Mrs. Lazan for visiting with our students to teach the important lessons of history, courage, survival and love through your own experiences.

To learn more about Marion Blumenthal Lazan, visit her website FourPerfectPebbles.

Holocaust survivor Marion Blumenthal Lazan, now 90 years old, holds up the yellow star that she was ordered to wear disclosing her Jewish identity while she talks with Stimson students about her family’s imprisonment during the Nazi German regime.

Knowing the importance of sharing the history of the Holocaust, ENL students wore headphones as this Stimson teacher translated Mrs. Lazan’s entire presentation for them to hear.

Students lined up waiting to hug Mrs. Lazan as she came off the stage after hearing her powerful story.