Holocaust survivor to speak at WCU

Susan Cernyak-Spatz gives her testimony of survival through the Holocaust.

Holocaust survivor, Susan Cernyak-Spatz will share her stories from her published memoir, “Protective Custody: Prisoner 34042” at 7 p.m. Monday, March 14 in Western Carolina University’s Ramsey Regional Activity Center.

Cernyak-Spatz is a retired professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She now travels the United States and overseas to share about her two years at the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Cernyak-Spatz survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most notorious of Germany’s five death camps, where Hitler’s soldiers carried out what they called “The Final Solution” and what the world knows as the Holocaust.

The program at WCU will feature Cernyak-Spatz as she retells her experience at a Nazi concentration camp. She will give her testimony of survival and discuss her in-depth knowledge of the Holocaust.

  This event is sponsored by WCU’s Jewish Student Organization, Center for Leadership, Student Government Association and the Department of Intercultural Affairs. It is open to the public free of charge. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. The event is free and the doors will open at 6:30 p.m.

“It has been my experience that WCU is a campus that strives to be inclusive and provides many platforms for students to confront the mirage of questions such as: What happened? How did it happen? Could it happen again?” said Yolany Gonell, Associate Director of Programs for Intercultural Affairs.

“It’s a great honor to partner with these different WCU organizations to not only bring awareness but to teach and inform others about the horrors of the Holocaust.”