May 30, 2025

On Friday, May 30, 2025, survivor Ida Kersz spoke to around 100 mostly 8th grade and some freshman high school students, telling them the story of her experiences during the Holocaust and her life after the war, including a reunion with her twin brother, Adam, whom she found 50 years after the end of World War II.

The 8th grade students just returned from a Washington D.C. trip, where they visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In class, they are reading the book, Refugee, by Alan Gratz, which is a fiction novel revolving around three different refugee children from three different eras, including one child fleeing Nazi Germany. Sturgeon Bay parent and friend of the Foundation, Jim Downey, whose son is in the 8th grade class, helped facilitate bringing Ida to Sturgeon Bay for this very important presentation.

Door County Daily News covered the event in an article HERE.

You can also watch a short YouTube video about the event HERE.

 

 

Julia Waelder (Foundation Intern) and Ida Kersz at Sturgeon Bay High School, May 30, 2025. [Click for full size.]