Yom Hashoah Commemoration in Chapel Hill, NC

Thursday, May 1, 2008
7:30 PM to 9:00 PM

Posting this for those in the Triangle of NC.


Yom Hashoah - May 1, 2008
Exile and Return: A Hungarian Survivor's Story

The annual Durham-Chapel Hill Yom HaShoah commemoration will take place on Thursday, May 1, 7:30 pm at the Chapel Hill Kehillah, 1200 Mason Farm Road. Sponsored by: Generation to Generation: Triangle Area Sons and Daughters of Holocaust Survivors,Durham-Chapel Hill Jewish Federation, Beth El Synagogue, Chapel Hill Kehillah, Congregation Etz Chaim, Durham-Chapel Hill Chabad, Judea Reform Congregation, and the Triangle Congregation of Humanistic Judaism.

The program this year will feature the story of Ilona Engel Fuchs. Ilona Engel Fuchs was born and raised in Tokaj, Hungary, a town of 6,000 before the war, of which 1,000 were Jews. Along with her sisters and parents, she was deported to Auschwitz in 1944, where her parents and many other relatives were killed in the gas chambers. Ilona was among the few Jews to return to Tokaj after the war. In 1956, she left Hungary with her husband and children, eventually settling in California, where she taught dress design and construction for nearly 50 years. She moved to Chapel Hill last year where she is active in the Chapel Hill Kehillah.

Music will be provided by the Triangle Jewish Chorale under the direction of Jane Peppler. Local high-school students will be recognized as part of a Federation sponsored Holocaust essay contest.