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TIM MASSIE (845) 575-3171
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LOCAL AUTHOR TO DISCUSS NUNS' RESCUE OF JEWS IN WWII
POUGHKEEPSIE -
Author Suzanne Vromen will discuss "Shedding Light on Dark Times: The Rescue of Jewish Children by Belgian Convents During the Holocaust" in a talk at Marist College on Thursday, October 8, at 7 p.m. in the Nelly Goletti Theatre, located on the third floor of the Student Center on the Marist campus. The event is free and open to the public.
Vromen is the author of Hidden Children of the Holocaust: Belgian Nuns and Their Daring Rescue of Young Jews from the Nazis, which was published last year by Oxford University Press. A professor emeritus of sociology at Bard College, Vromen casts light on the precarious lives of hidden Jewish children in occupied Belgium and the brave nuns who gave them shelter and care. Her groundbreaking research was inspired by her own experience.
As a child, Vromen escaped occupied Belgium with her family, who found refuge in the Belgian Congo, where she attended a convent school. Recalling her "initial bewilderment at being plunged suddenly into a Catholic milieu," Vromen was able to connect at the deepest level with the surviving rescuers and former hidden children she interviewed.
Donna Seaman, host of Open Books Radio in Chicago, notes, "These remarkably detailed and profoundly moving conversations are matched by Vromen's fresh and insightful analysis of knotty questions of identity, inheritance, faith, and survival. Writing with a disciplined clarity, Vromen chronicles the integration of young Jews into convent life, the baptism of many and the conversion of some, and the psychological, social, and spiritual repercussions. Vromen's exacting and corrective work of history and remembrance is uniquely sensitive and illuminating."
Vromen's presentation is sponsored by the Marist offices of Student Affairs and Public Affairs and the college's Catholic Studies and Jewish Studies programs.
For further information, call the Marist College Office of Public Affairs at (845) 575-3174.
