Though she doesn’t remember for certain, Marion Blumenthal Lazan said she must have seen Anne Frank when they were both prisoners in the Nazi-controlled Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
But she was a teenager, recalled Lazan, who spoke at area schools and libraries last week. `What use would she have had for a 9-year-old girl?`
But while Frank’s story ended with her tragic death, Lazan’s story is filled with endurance, determination, faith and survival.
Lazan was sent to Bergen-Belsen along with her parents and brother Albert, one month before the family had scheduled a flight to the United States.
At the camp, the family was starved, living on watery soup and one small piece of stale bread each day. Lazan said she barely bathed and that her clothes and hair were infested with lice.
`I played make-believe games to pass the time,` said Lazan. `I would search for four perfect little pebbles, each one representing a member of my family. I thought that if I found them, then we would all make it out alive.`
While all four family members survived their imprisonment, Lazan’s father died of typhus shortly after the war ended.
Lazan, now 73 years old, weighed only 35 pounds in the spring of 1945 at age 10. Slowly, she regained her strength and began her education.
At age 13, Lazan immigrated to the United States. Landing in Peoria, Ill., Lazan was placed in the fourth grade with 9-year-olds. Though she spoke little English, Lazan persevered, graduating with honors from high school only five years later.
Lazan also met her future husband in Peoria.
Nathaniel Lazan was a student at Bradley University, who fell in love with the 16-year-old Marion at first sight.
`I saw her at a Yom Kippur service, and I asked to walk her home,` said Lazan. `I’ve been walking her home ever since.`
Now the mother of three and grandmother of nine, Lazan, who lives on Long Island, spends much of the year sharing her story at schools around the county.
And while Lazan recognizes her own remarkable story, she likes to say the real survivor is her mother, who turned 100 in February.
`I still call her every day,` said Lazan.
Lazan shared her story in the Capital District last week, making stops at O’Rourke Middle School, part of the Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake School District, Clifton Park-Halfmoon Public Library and Schalmont Middle School.
Lazan, who began speaking publicly about her experiences in 1979, is also the author of an acclaimed memoir, `Four Perfect Pebbles,` published in 1996. The book is housed in several local schools and public libraries.
`This is the last generation that will hear from a Holocaust survivor,` said Linda Fasano, middle school librarian at Schalmont. `Every kid has heard of Anne Frank, but she didn’t survive.`
She said Lazan has been coming to Schalmont for nearly 10 years and that her book is a popular choice of students.
Nancy Pearse, dean of students at Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake, said she thought Lazan’s message resonated with students because it teaches not to dwell on the past and to look into the future with optimism.
`I hope they learned the message,` said Pearse. `It was very powerful.`
— By ROSS MARVIN and ASHLEY LUCAS, Spotlight Staff
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