Annual Holocaust Memorial Program featuring Dr. Peter Haslund

This year, our Annual Holocaust memorial will feature a keynote by Dr. Peter Haslund, a survivor. Dr. Haslund describes his ordeal as:

A story of very ordinary people, like my foster mom who brought me from Copenhagen to her parent’s farm in Slagelse — from the big city to a very rural environment — at my mother’s request in October 1943.  I remember being devastated when I was told that my mother would not be coming to get me, possibly ever.  I became a little 4-year old farmer, and I had my hiding place for times when our farm was visited by German soldiers, so it is a story about the courage it must have required to violate German law by keeping me in the hay-loft.  It is also the story of my mother and her family who went to Sweden by small boat in the dead of night after deciding that I could not come along.  There is a reunion in 1947 with my mother and our family, followed by the 1949 journey to America and the promises that such a journey held.

Dr. Haslund will also talk about that inner struggle that he senses “is common among those with similar experiences: how to deal with contemporary Germans who were blameless and had nothing to do with creating the pain brought on by war.” This promises to be an extraordinary event, and will include readings and musical performances by clergy and members of the Fairfield University community.

The remembrance service will also include readings and musical performances by clergy and members of the Fairfield University community, offering a moment of reflection and tribute to the lives lost and the survivors who have carried their stories forward.

 This event is presented by Fairfield University’s Bennett Center for Judaic Studies, Campus Ministry, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Fairfield County.