John Bannister Presents The Secret Holocaust Diaries

Ruth Kluger, a memoirist who survived Auschwitz as a young girl, takes issue with friends who say she was robbed of her childhood: "I say this, too, was childhood. I grew up, and I learned something, as every child does who grows up." It's a reminder that life in all its banality goes on even in the most unimaginable circumstances. Nonna Bannister's new memoir visits similar ground. The child of a wealthy Russian family, Nonna Lisowskaja was transported to a German labor camp as a teenager after the Germans invaded her country. She was the only member of the family who lived. Eager to lead a normal life, she emigrated to the U.S. at 23 and raised a family in Tennessee. Only a few years before her death did she revisit the journal, using it as the basis for this book. Surviving family members will discuss her remarkable story.
Thu., July 2, 7 p.m., 2009