Chabad of Venice will host a special event featuring Holocaust survivor Irene Zisblatt on Feb. 15 at 10 a.m. at the Venice Community Center, 326 Nokomis Ave. S.
Born in Hungary in what is now Polyana, Ukraine, in 1929, Zisblatt experienced the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust firsthand. At age 14, she was taken to Auschwitz, enduring not only the extreme cruelty of the camp but also the infamous experiments of Josef Mengele, the German SS officer and physician called the “Angel of Death.”
Zisblatt’s experiences were highlighted in the Academy Award-winning documentary “The Last Days” by Steven Spielberg. The film tells the stories of five Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, focusing on the last year of World War II, when Nazi Germany occupied Hungary and began mass deportations of Jews to concentration and extermination camps, primarily Auschwitz.
Reflecting on the heart-wrenching separation from her family, Zisblatt said, “He kicked [my mother] away from me, and I begged him to let me go with my family, but he just kicked me away, too, in the opposite direction. And then I heard my mother call out, ‘Don’t cry, I will come for you later’ – that was the last time I heard her voice.”