Holocaust Survivor Visits Lansdale School

Manya Frydman Perel stood before dozens of smiling faces at Pennbrook Middle School on May 20, but 70 years ago she watched the backs of cold, tired, starving Jewish comrades as she was marched from death camp to death camp by Nazis hoping to avoid the inevitably invading Allied forces.

It was the winter of 1944-1945, and Perel, along with innumerable other Jews, was in the midst of the brutality of the Holocaust, Hitler’s attempted genocidal decimation of an entire race of people.

As America prepared for a day of remembrance and appreciation for service members who sacrificed their lives for their nation, Perel gave students a reminder of exactly what that sacrifice won.

On May 8, 1945, when Perel was 20 years old, the Allied forces freed her camp. Her life, which nearly ended along with millions of other victims, was instead just beginning.

Pennbrook students just finished reading Anne Frank’s “Diary of a Young Girl.” The school hoped that having a Holocaust survivor speak at the event would make the event more real for the students.

Perel works with the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center in Philadelphia to raise awareness about what happened, so that it never happens again.