Holocaust survivor Eva Perlman spoke in the student union during office hours on April 24, providing students with a firsthand account of her life experiences. Students from all grades attended the speaker event and listened as Perlman told her story and drew from a lifetime of experiences.
Pelman started speaking as a Holocaust survivor after joining the March of the Living, an annual educational program which takes students to Poland to learn about the Holocaust. The group marches yearly from Auschwitz to Birkenau to honor those who passed during the war each Holocaust Memorial day on Jan 27.
“Since I came in ‘89, I’d never met a survivor and especially not a survivor who told their story,” Perlman said. “And then during covid I was listening to survivors speaking. One survivor every week was telling his or her story, and I called a lady who introduced them, and I said, ‘I have a story too’, and that’s how I started.”
Born in Germany, Perlman, her parents and her two younger brothers fled their home country of Germany when Perlman was a child to escape the Nazi regime. She and her family had no choice but to hide out in other people’s homes throughout France and London, never staying in one place for too long.
Perlman shared her story of narrowly escaping capture by the Nazis multiple times and urged students to appreciate the privileged lives that they have in Irvine. After Perlman’s presentation, countless students approached her and thanked her for sharing her story and went as far as to hug Perlman, showing the emotional effect that her story had on the student body.
“The last sentence of her talk had the most emotional impact on me as she said to remember the millions of Jewish children who died and never got the chance to live the life we’re living,” sophomore Lillian Chehade said. “Hearing a firsthand response was really powerful and the way she articulated her story was really moving. And it helped me understand World War II from a different perspective.”
Perlman said that it is important for stories like hers and her families to be told because in a mere 20 years, there will not be anymore Holocaust survivors remaining to educate younger generations. Through Perlman’s continuous efforts as a Holocaust Survivor Educator, students are being taught about the Holocaust all across schools in Orange County.
