6 • The North Shore Sun • May 4, 2007

By Denise Civiletti

ROCKY POINT—She is compelled to bear witness, determined that the world should never forget the horrors endured by Jewish people under the Third Reich, determined that it should never happen again.

Marion Blumenthal Lazan, a Ger-man-born Jew who survived almost six and a half years in refugee camps and the infamous Bergen-Belsen con-centration camp during World War II, travels the country today telling school-children about the nightmare she lived as a child.

“It is the story Anne Frank might have told had she survived,” Ms. Lazan says. It is a compelling story of “cour-age, determination, faith and, above all, hope,” the moral of which is the impor-tance of being tolerant and respectful of other people and cultures.

“You are the last generation to hear this story firsthand,” Ms. Lazan told a rapt audience of middle school students packed into the Rocky Point High School auditorium Monday morning. “In a few short years, we won’t be here any more to tell this story,” she said, re-ferring to the aging generation of Ho-locaust survivors.

The story Ms. Lazan tells is difficult to hear. But it is even more difficult to tell, she reminds her audience — even after so many years. It is the story of a

4-year-old girl and her family, forced to leave their home, robbed of their pos-sessions, shuttled from refugee camp to refugee camp and eventually shipped to Bergen-Belsen, the concentration camp where Anne Frank died of ty-phus in 1945. She talks about being ter-rorized by German soldiers and their vicious police dogs, of the horrific living

conditions in the camp, where she spent 14 months sharing a narrow wooden bunk with her mother in a filthy, over-crowded, heatless barrack where the bunk beds, stacked three high, “served as our only living quarters.” Ms. Lazan considers herself lucky to have been able to share the bunk’s straw mattress and single thin blanket with her own

mother; the same cramped space was typically inhabited by two adult prison-ers.

The prisoners were deprived of food, water and basic sanitary facilities. Lice infestation — of hair, clothing and bed-ding — was rampant. Ms. Lazan recalls “squishing lice between my fingernails” as a childhood pastime. The lice spread typhus, the deadly disease that claimed the lives of countless pris-oners — including Ms. Lazan’s father, who succumbed six weeks after the family was liberated from Nazi impris-onment by the Allies in April 1945.

Another pastime of her bleak child-hood in the prison camp was a game she made up, which she called “four perfect pebbles.” Every day she would try to find four identical, perfectly round pebbles, one representing each member of her family: mother, father and older brother Albert. If she found them, her family would survive. “It was superstitious,” Ms. Lazan says, “and sometimes I cheated,” keeping “per-fect pebbles” hidden in a secret place where she could “find” them anew, she admits.

Holocaust survivor educates Rocky Point Middle School studentsA story that must be told

Sun photo by Denise Civiletti

Holocaust survivor Marion Blumenthal Lazan speaking to Rocky Point Middle School students following her talk at the high school on Monday.

‘It is the story Anne Frank might have told.’Marion Blumenthal Lazan

See HOLOCAUST, page 42

42 • The North Shore Sun • May 4, 2007

Education and Learning (herein called “EXCEL”) State aid program, and ad-ditional amounts of other State aid, and all of such aid as and when received by the District shall be applied to offset and reduce the taxes hereby authorized.

Said EXCEL Proposition will appear on the ballot labels inserted in the vot-ing machines used for voting on May 15, 2007 in substantially the following ab-breviated form:

EXCEL PROPOSITIONYES NORESOLVED:(a) That the Board of Education of

the Rocky Point Union Free School District, in the County of Suffolk, New York (the “District”), is hereby autho-rized to construct improvements and al-terations to all District school buildings and the construction of a maintenance building; and to expend therefor not to exceed $7,341,000; (b) that a tax is here-by voted in the amount of not to exceed $7,341,000 to finance such cost, such tax to be levied and collected in install-ments in such years and in such amounts as shall be determined by said Board of Education; and bonds of the District are authorized to be issued in the principal amount of not to exceed $7,341,000 and a tax is hereby voted to pay the inter-est on said bonds as the same shall be-come due and payable; and (c) that the District expects to receive EXCEL and other aid from the State of New York, and such aid as and when received by the District shall offset and reduce the taxes hereby authorized.

AND FURTHER NOTICE IS

HEREBY GIVEN, that a copy of the statement of the amount of money which will be required to fund the School District’s budget for 2007-2008, exclusive of public monies, may be ob-tained by any resident of the District between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., prevailing time, beginning May 1, 2007, every day except Saturday, Sun-day, and holidays, at the District Admin-istrative Office, 170 Route 25A, Rocky Point, New York, and at each school-house within the District.

AND FURTHER NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that petitions nominating candidates for the office of member of the Board of Education shall be filed with the Clerk of said School District at the Clerk’s Office in the District Administrative Office, 170 Route 25A, Rocky Point, New York, not later than April 16, 2007, between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., prevailing time. Such petitions must be directed to the Clerk of the District and must be signed by at least 31 qualified voters of the Dis-trict; must state the name and resident of each signer, and must state the name and residence of the candidate.

AND FURTHER NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that personal regis-tration of voters is required either pur-suant to § 2014 of the Education Law or pursuant to Article 5 of the Election Law. If a voter has heretofore registered pursuant to § 2014 of the Education Law and has voted at any Annual or Special District Meeting within the last four (4) calendar years, he or she is eligible to vote at this election. If a voter is regis-tered and eligible to vote under Article 5 of the Election Law, he or she is also

eligible to vote at this election. All other persons who wish to vote must register.

The Board of Registration will meet for the purpose of registering all quali-fied voters of the District pursuant to § 2014 of the Education Law at the Rocky Point High School, Rocky Point-Yaphank Road, Rocky Point, New York on Tuesday, May 1, 2007 and again on Tuesday, May 8, 2007, at the same site between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m., prevailing time, to add any additional names to the Register to be used at the aforesaid vote/election, at which times any person will be entitled to have his or her name placed on such Register, provided that at such meeting of the Board of Registration he or she is known or proven to the satisfaction of said Board of Registration to be then or thereafter entitled to vote at such elec-tion for which the register is prepared. The register so prepared pursuant to § 2014 of the Education Law will be filed in the Office of the District Clerk, Dis-trict Administrative Office, 170 Route 25A, Rocky Point, New York, and will be open for inspection by any quali-fied voter of the District beginning on Thursday, May 10, 2007, and each day thereafter prior to the day set for the election, except Sunday, as follows and at the polling place on the day of the vote; Thursday, May 10, 2007, and Fri-day, May 11, 2007, between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. and Saturday, May 12, 2007, between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon.

AND FURTHER NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that pursuant to § 2014 of the Education Law of the State of New York, the Board of Registration

will meet on Tuesday, May 15, 2007, be-tween the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m., prevailing time, at the polling site to be used at the Budget Vote and Elec-tion (Annual Meeting) to be held in 2007, and at any special district meet-ings that may be held after the prepara-tion of said Register, at which time any person will be entitled to have his or her name placed on such Register pro-vided that such meeting of said Board of Registration he or she is known or proven to the satisfaction of such Board of Registration to be then or thereafter entitled to vote at the school election for which said Register is prepared, or any special district meeting held after May 15, 2007.

AND FURTHER NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that applications for absentee ballots will be obtain-able during school business hours from the District Clerk, beginning April 16, 2007; completed applications must be received by the District Clerk at least seven (7) days before the election if the ballot is to be mailed to the voter, or the day before the election, if the ballot is to be delivered personally to the voter. Absentee ballots must be received by the District Clerk not later than 5:00 p.m., prevailing time, on Tuesday, May 15, 2007.

A list of persons to whom absentee ballots are issued will be available for inspection to qualified voters of the Dis-trict in the Office of the District Clerk beginning on Thursday, May 10, 200, and each day thereafter prior to the day set for the election, except Sunday, as fol-lows and at the polling place on the day of the vote; Thursday, May 10, 2007, and

Friday, May 11, 2007, between the hoursof 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. and Saturday,May 12, 2007, between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 noon.

AND FURTHER NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that pursuant to arule adopted by the Board of Educationin accordance with § 2035 of the Educa-tion Law, any referenda or propositionsto amend the budget, or otherwise to be submitted for voting at said elec-tion, must be filed with the Clerk of the Board of Education at the District Administrative Office, 170 Route 25A, Rocky Point, New York, no later than April 16, 2007, at 4:00 p.m., prevailing time, must be typed or printed in the English language must be directed tothe Clerk of the School District; must be signed by at least 350 qualified votersof the School District; and must legibly state the name of each signer. However,the School Board will not entertain anypetition to place before the voters any proposition the purpose of which is not within the powers of the voters to deter-mine, which is unlawful or any propo-sition which fails to include a specificappropriation where the expenditure of monies is required by the proposi-tion, or where other valid reason existsfor excluding the proposition from theballot.Dated: Rocky Point, New York March 2007

PATRICIA JONES,DISTRICT CLERK

ROCKY POINT UNION FREESCHOOL DISTRICT

Suffolk County, New York4325-4T 3/30; 4/6, 20; 5/4

Legals…Continued from page 12A

were in the earliest times of the church — with arms upraised to heaven.

The history of the Congregational church in America begins with some of America’s first European settlers. The rock the Pilgrims founded their colony on wasn’t Plymouth Rock, it was the rock of the Congregational Church.

The Rev. Dr. Diane Samuels, the church’s pastor, explains that the reli-gious freedom the Pilgrims left Eng-land and Holland to find was the free-dom to worship as Congregationalists.

“Up in the north, in New England, we were the first American church,” she explained.

It was a church that rejected the pomp and decorations of Catholi-

cism or the Church of England and embraced the simple and the straight-forwardness of the Protestant Refor-mation.

Dr. Samuels went on, “We believe in the primacy of the Bible. It’s about the preaching; about the word, not images.”

“There are no distractions in the church, no pictures, no icons,” she pointed out. “Not even a cross. We would consider it almost idolatry to have a statue.”

The building that stands alongside the road in Mount Sinai today is not quite the same building erected in 1807.

A 91-foot steeple was added in 1851, and a pipe organ, with 1,150 pipes, was installed in the early ’90s.

But the original structure, with its plain wooden white walls, central pulpit and wide-planked pews, sur-

rounded on three sides by a generous balcony, delivers the strong, simple message its designer intended: Focus on God, folks, there’s nothing here to take your attention away from his word and your prayers.

For insurance, however, organizers of the re-created 19th-century service last Sunday arranged for a “tithing man.” He had a long stick. On one end of the stick a feather. On the oth-er end, a hard knob. His job was to see no one slept or lost focus during the service.

When the meeting house was built in 1807, the work was done by parish-ioner Thomas Bayles, working mostly alone, in 157 days. The cost was $1,400, which was raised by subscription in just nine days.

While today church membership is 650, when founded in 1789 (the year

George Washington was inaugurated president) there were only nine mem-bers (six men and three women).

By 1807, says Ms. Jane Carter, church historian, the membership may have outgrown the facilities. But she thought the real reason for a new meeting house was that the old one needed too many repairs.

Today, says the Rev. Samuels, the real focus of the church is forward. She explained the congregation sup-ports an active and aggressive minis-try program; has sent help to New Or-leans and Central America, and sup-ports Church World Service’s work sending school and kid kits overseas to the disadvantaged.

For more information about Mount Sinai Congregational Church (United Church of Christ), visit www.mtsinai-churchli.org or call (631) 473-1582.

Rocky Point sixth-, seventh- and eight-graders sat riveted as the diminu-tive Ms. Lazan recounted being forced to stand for endless hours, regardless of the weather and without clothing to protect against the cold, rain or snow, as Nazi troops conducted prisoner head counts. She told them of carts piled high with corpses, of the sight of electrocuted bodies hanging on the 12-foot-high electrified fence following desperate but futile attempts to escape the misery of Bergen-Belsen.

She told them about two weeks crammed in a freight train transport-ing 2,500 Jews to a death camp — a journey interrupted by an allied forces attack and the end of the war. But the two weeks of hell in the stifling cattle car are memories Ms. Lazan recalls in disturbing detail: a trip without food or water and very little air, people forced to live in their own excrement, condi-tions that claimed the lives of 500 along

the way. Every so often, the train would stop, and the doors of the car would be opened by soldiers, who would shout “Toten raus!” (“Out with the dead!”) The bodies would be pulled from the train and buried in unmarked mass graves alongside the tracks.

When Ms. Lazan was set free in 1945, she weighed just 35 pounds.

Today — fit, trim and energetic at 73 — Ms. Lazan is retired from a long-time job in a Long Island physician’s office. A Hewlett resident, she is a hospital volunteer, active in Hadas-sah and travels to frequent speaking engagements with her husband of 54 years, Nathaniel, a native New Yorker she met in 1951. Her mother, Ruth Blumenthal, whose strength and de-termination Ms. Lazan credits for the family’s survival, is now 99 years old and lives not far from her daughter in Nassau County. Her brother lives on the West Coast.

Since she first began telling her sto-ry in 1979, Ms. Lazan estimates she’s spoken to 500,000 people.

With author Lila Perl, Ms. Lazan

collaborated on a memoir 11 years ago named for her childhood game, “Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story.” It has been translated into German, Dutch and Japanese. Two years ago, “Marian’s Triumph,” a doc-

umentary about her life, was made for public television.

“So you see,” Ms. Lazan told the Rocky Point students Monday, “de-spite all the terrible things that hap-pened to me as a child, my life today is full and rewarding.” She implores her audiences to “be kind, gentle and respect others,” drawing parallels between the hatred of the Nazis, the terrorists of 9-11 and the genocide in Darfur.

Ms. Lazan urges children to tell the story of the Holocaust to their friends, families and, one day, children and grandchildren, to pass her eyewit-ness account on to future generations. “Only then can we ensure that it will never happen again.”

Holocaust survivor Marion Blu-menthal Lazan embraces Rocky Point Middle School eighth-grader Michelle Katz, whose grandfather is also a Holocaust survivor, at the high school on Monday.

Holocaust...Continued from page 6

200 years...Continued from page 1

Sun photo by Denise Civiletti