An educational experience that explores the framing of the past and present through the viewing of highlights from the documentary Final Account. A panel discussion with Holocaust survivors and children of Holocaust survivors about complicity, propaganda and responsibility as reflected in the film will follow the screening. For more information about the film, visit here.
The discussion will be moderated by Mike Markovits. Panelists include Judith Altmann, Marilyn Altman, Ilan Fogel and Andy Sarkany.
Mike Markovits is an independent leadership consultant, founder of Markovits Consulting Services, LLC. Mike is an internationally recognized expert in leadership development, talent management and succession, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Mike is active in community-based activities including leading support groups for white people on eliminating racism and co-leading an effort entitled: Facing Racism in Stamford CT. Mike began his career in the social sector and has sat on several nonprofit boards throughout his career. He earned his Masters in Management from MIT, his Masters in Education from Harvard, and his BA from Oberlin College.
Judith Altmann was born in Jasinia, Czechoslovakia. In 1939, the Nazis invaded her town. In 1944, Judy Altmann, her family, and the entire town of Jasinia, were arrested and transported by cattle car to Auschwitz. From there, she was sent to Essen and Gelsenkirchen labor camps. In March 1945, she was forced into a “death march” that ended in Bergen Belsen. Sick with typhus, she was barely alive when she was liberated by the British Army in May 1945. She went to Sweden and then to the United States, where she married. She has two sons and two grandchildren. For the last twenty-five years, Judy Altmann has visited schools, churches, and synagogues to tell her story and provide Holocaust and Genocide education to both children and adults. To date, Judy Altmann has spoken to over 100,000 people.
Marilyn Altman is a retired Emmy-award winning Director of Special Projects from NBC News Field Operations. Her 40-year span in broadcasting mostly dealt with planning manpower, facilities, and logistics to broadcast live from any location outside of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, both domestically and internationally. She is the daughter of Holocaust survivors from Germany and Austria who met in NYC during the war. Her father served as a medic in the United States Army. After the war, he and four of his brothers started a jewelry manufacturing business in Manhattan. Some of her parents’ relatives did not leave Europe and were murdered in the Holocaust.
Ilan Fogel currently serves as the Global Lead for External Scientific Engagement in the Neuro-science Business Unit at Eli Lilly. He is a Board Certified Physician with experience in Psychiatry, Neurology, Telemedicine, Finance and pharmaceutical medicine. Ilan was born in South Africa, the son of Rabbi Joseph and Mrs. Judy Fogel both of whom were Czech Holocaust survivors. They met after the war, helped found a yishuv in the newly established State of Israel, and were leaders in the South African Jewish community for 30 years where Rabbi Fogel founded and established the South African Yad Vashem Memorial.
Endre (Andy) Sarkany was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1936. In the Budapest ghetto where he remained during the Holocaust, he lived in a building that housed a nursery/kindergarten on the ground floor. The school was affiliated with the Jewish Agency of Hungary and was led by Mr. Eugene Polnay. The building also housed a dance, acrobat and ballet studio on the top floor. These facts were significant in Endre’s survival and that of at least 150 orphaned children. Endre’s father was taken to Mauthausen concentration camp in the spring of 1944, and fortunately, he did survive. Over the past 10 years, Endre has been speaking to students about his personal experiences during the Holocaust, living under the brutality of the Soviet regime in Hungary, and finding a home in the United States. Mr. Sarkany is married, has a daughter and son, and five grandchildren.
Registration is required and can be done so here. Zoom details will be provided in the confirmation email. For more information, call 203-351-8231.
Generously supported by the Friends of the Ferguson Library and co-sponsored by the Jewish Historical Society of Fairfield County, United Jewish Federation of Stamford, New Canaan and Darien, and the Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center.
