Survivor Presentations an Inspiration to All

UACCM and the Morrilton area were privileged last week to witness two presentations featuring a true living piece of history. Survivor Agi Geva shared her eyewitness account of the events she experienced throughout the Holocaust with hundreds of area students and adults during presentations at H.B. White Auditorium at Morrilton High School and in the UACCM Fine Arts Auditorium.

Unfortunately, a reality we face today is that in 15 to 20 years, the last remaining eyewitnesses to the atrocities of the Holocaust will be gone, and while in Morrilton, Geva captivated audiences by telling of her time growing up in Hungary, her time spent in the notorious Nazi death camps of Auschwitz and Plaszow, the 400 kilometer forced death march she managed to survive alongside her mother and younger sister, and her eventual liberation by the American Army. A question and answer session followed each presentation, and audiences were then invited onstage to visit with Geva and view the infamous Auschwitz tattoo on her left arm as a constant reminder of the suffering she endured more than 65 years ago.

The presentations were both free community events and were arranged by the college through the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington D.C. Each year, dozens of Holocaust survivors present their stories to thousands of citizens all across the country. Geva says “I believe it helps people deal with the Holocaust when they are able to hear the story of someone who was there.” She added “I would be just fine if I didn’t talk about it, though.” At the conclusion of the Thursday evening presentation, Geva presented a book from the USHMM called “Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers” for donation to UACCM’s E. Allen Gordon Library. The book is a report from the Genocide Prevention Task Force authored by Madeleine Albright and William Cohen and is one of only a few the museum has published at this time.