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My Friend Abe – A Holocaust Survivor’s Story

My Friend Abe – A Holocaust Survivor’s Story
Thursday, January 07, 2021
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm

Abe Piasek's powerful story of survival during the Holocaust saw him taken from his family in Poland at age 13. He never saw his mother, father, or younger sister again. Abe toiled in three slave labor camps from 1942-45. When he was liberated in 1945 at age 16, he weighed under 80 pounds. Abe did not speak about what happened to him for nearly 50 years. He finally did start telling his story, with more than 10,000 people throughout North Carolina having heard Abe's story over the last decade of his life. Though it was painful to keep telling his story, he kept on telling it because he felt the world had to know what happened to him and what can happen when hate and dehumanization go unchecked.

Abe passed away at age 91 in January of 2020, and Steve Goldberg is now telling Abe's story. Steve is a double Duke graduate (BA 1990, MAT 1995) and a veteran high school teacher who also has a law degree from Georgetown Law School. Steve became friends with Abe after hearing his story and traveling with Abe to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. Steve has extensively researched Abe's life and is now telling the story of "My Friend Abe" by weaving together Abe's videotaped testimony with maps and images to bring Abe's story to life.

The format will be a presentation of Abe's life during the Holocaust for approximately 40 minutes on Zoom, followed by a Question and Answer session.

Contact: Jeremy Buotte