An Interfaith Service of Remembrance for “Kristallnacht” A Conversation with Holocaust Survivors and Witnesses to Kristallnacht, Engelina Billauer and Idele Stapholtz

November 9 | 7:00 PM
Wallace All Faiths Chapel | Fish Interfaith Center

For the tenth year, Chapman University gathers as an interfaith community to commemorate Kristallnacht. We remember the violence that swept across Germany on November 9-10, 1938,
and the arrests and deportations that followed. Children at the time, both Engelina Lowenberg Billauer and Idele Steuer Stapholtz experienced this night of terror first hand.

A Conversation with Holocaust Survivors and Witnesses to Kristallnacht, Engelina Billauer and Idele Stapholtz

Moderated by Dr. Marilyn Harran
Director, Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education and Stern Chair,
Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, Chapman University

The John and Toby Martz Distinguished Lecture in Holocaust Studies
The Jerry and Sally Schwartz Holocaust Education Fund

This event is co-sponsored by the Chapman Interfaith Council, Fish Interfaith Center, and the
Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education.

From her bedroom in Berlin, Germany, on Kristallnacht, Engelina heard the sound of shattering glass and saw the night sky lit up in flames. The next morning, on her  way to school, she witnessed her synagogue still burning. In September 1942, the Lowenberg family was deported, and Engelina and her sister, Frieda, endured forced labor and a succession of horrific camps, ending in Bergen-Belsen where they were liberated on April 15, 1945. Engelina’s older brother, Wilhelm, committed suicide shortly after Kristallnacht, and her parents were murdered in a mass execution in Estonia.

Idele experienced the terror of Kristallnacht as a twelve-year-old, living in a Jewish children’s home in the Rhineland. The home was destroyed during that night’s wave of violence. A few weeks later, Idele was sent on a Kindertransport, children’s transport, to Brussels, Belgium, where two courageous Catholic women,  Madame Marie Goossens and her daughter, Germaine, gave Idele a home and risked their lives to protect her until Brussels was liberated on September 3, 1944.

Admission is free. No tickets/reservations required.

Reserved seating is available for groups of 10 or more.
Contact Ashley Bloomfield at (714) 532-7760 or
ambloom@chapman.edu to make group reservations.