talk by Holocaust survivor Susan Cernyak-Spatz of Charlotte.
Cernyak-Spatz, a Professor Emerita of German literature at UNC
Charlotte, will speak about her suffering at the hands of the Nazi
regime in a talk titled, "The Perpetrators of the Holocaust Through
the Eyes of the Victims." It will begin at 4:30 p.m. in Chambers
Building room 2164, and there is no charge to attend. For more
information, call 704-894-2284.
Cernyak-Spatz was born into a middle-class Jewish family in Vienna
during the interwar period. In 1929, the family moved to Berlin, where
they witnessed the Hitler movement's rise to power. Along with her
parents, Cernyak-Spatz fled to Prague in March 1938. While her father
managed to escape to Belgium shortly before the German invasion of
Poland, theNazis arrested and eventually deported Cernyak-Spatz and
her mother.
Cernyak-Spatz survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, the women's concentration
camp of Ravensbrück, and a death march during the waning weeks of the
war. Her mother died in Theresienstadt.
In July 1946, Cernyak-Spatz managed to leave Europe for the U.S. She
completed a dissertation on German Holocaust literature in 1971,
working under the direction of Ruth Klüger, another survivor. She has
published work on various aspects of the Holocaust, and her memoirs
appeared in 2005.
