SCPL Special Event

"Four Perfect Pebbles" Author to Speak

SCHENECTADY, NY (10/08/2014)(readMedia)-- Marion Blumenthal Lazan, author of "Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story," will speak at Schenectady County Public Library, 99 Clinton St., on Tuesday, Oct. 21 at 6:30 p.m. in the McChesney Room. This free program is appropriate for grades 6 to adult. Call the Reference Desk at 388-4511 to register A book sale and personal inscription by Marion, conducted by The Open Door Bookstore, will follow the program. The store will be offering a 20% discount on the book up until Saturday, October 18. To order a copy, call the store at 346-2719. Marion Blumenthal Lazan's memoir recalls the devastating years that shaped her childhood. Following Hitler's rise to power, the Blumenthal family was trapped in Nazi Germany. They managed eventually to get to Holland, but soon thereafter it was occupied by the Nazis. For the next six and a half years the Blumenthals were forced to live in refugee, transit, and prison camps that included Westerbork in Holland and the notorious Bergen-Belsen in Germany. Though they all survived the camps, Walter Blumenthal, Marion's father, succumbed to typhus just after liberation. It took three more years of struggle and waiting before Marion, her brother, and their mother at last obtained the necessary papers and boarded ship for the United States.