Methodist College to Host Holocaust Survivor Magda Brown for Guest Lecture
February 21, 2017
Holocaust survivor Magda Brown will speak as part of the Methodist College Committee for Co-Curricular Activities programming at 6 p.m. Monday, March 6, in the Parliament Room of the Methodist College campus, 7600 N. Academic Dr. Her presentation, “Giving Voice to Those Who Had No Voice” will address the idea of how easy it is for hatred to take a hold of people’s souls.
Magda Brown was born in Hungary in 1927. In 1944, she and her family were transported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland. On arrival to the camp, she was separated from her family, and all other family members were sent directly to the gas chambers.
After two months of torture and imprisonment in Auschwitz, Brown was sent to a work camp in Germany, where she and other Jewish women worked in dangerous conditions making bombs and rockets.
At the end of March 1945, Brown was sent on a death march to Buchenwald. Together with other prisoners, she decided to attempt an escape. She was found by American soldiers and liberated. After the war, Brown moved to the United States. Out of her extended family of 70 individuals, only six cousins had survived, as well as her brother. Brown eventually joined family members in Chicago in September 1946. She went on to marry, raise a family, and had a 40-year career as a Certified Medical Assistant.
This is Brown’s third visit to the Methodist College campus. She also meets regularly with Methodist College students during their visits to the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. The students are enrolled in Suffering and Forgiveness course taught by Dr. Octavian Gabor.
Brown is a member of the Speaker’s Bureau of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. In her biography Brown states that although it is painful to remember her horrendous experiences, she believes her story and others have to be told. “The telling and remembrance of survivors’ stories will reassure those who doubt the Holocaust that it was a very real and frightening period in the 20th century.”
The event is free and open to the public. For more information on Magda Brown visit www.magdabrown.com.