Katalin Vecsey, a member of the Bates College theater faculty, reads from the writings of Holocaust survivor Judith Magyar Isaacson ’65 in a free public event.

Selections from Isaacson’s book Seed of Sarah: Memoirs of a Survivor, as well as a forthcoming sequel, soon to be published by Hentrich & Hentrich, of Berlin, will be presented by Vecsey.

• Callahan Hall at the Lewiston Public Library
• Thursday, Feb. 12, at 7 p.m.

Isaacson, a native of Hungary and a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz-Birkenau and Hessisch Lichtenau (a Buchenwald satellite camp), is known nationally for “Seed of Sarah” and for the work in human rights education she has done in light of her World War II experiences.

Sharon H. Abrams, longtime executive director of the Maine Children’s Home for Little Wanderers, in Waterville, is the other Maine woman to be honored during the hall’s 15th induction ceremony, scheduled for March 20 in Jewett Hall, University of Maine at Augusta. The event is held every March to coincide with Women’s History Month.

A Silver Tea honoring the inductees will be held at 2 p.m. Contributions will be accepted for a scholarship program run by the Maine Federation of Business & Professional Women, which co-sponsors the Hall of Fame with the Futurama Foundation and the university. The U.S. Postal Service will also hold a special stamp cancellation for the Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony for Abrams and Isaacson will follow.

As a Holocaust survivor, Judith Magyar Isaacson has built an exceptional human rights advocacy upon her experiences as a witness of genocide. Seed of Sarah (University of Illinois Press, 1991) has been acclaimed for its feminist perspective on the Nazi atrocities, and Isaccson has lectured widely on the Holocaust, civil liberties and equal rights.

Isaacson advanced equal rights for women at two influential educational institutions in Maine. As dean of women and dean of students at Bates from 1969 to 1977, she was instrumental in ending discriminatory practices – eliminating, for example, separate and unequal codes of conduct for men and women. (In the college’s in the 1969-70 student handbook, two pages of rules applied to men vs. eight for women.) She continued to support women’s rights as a member of the Bowdoin College Board of Overseers from 1984 to 1996.

Isaacson’s book has been a best seller for the University of Illinois Press and for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Still in print, Seed of Sarah has appeared in German and Hungarian translations and was adapted by Maine composer Mark Polishook for an opera and subsequent film that is now in international distribution.

Isaacson received the prestigious Hargraves Preservation of Freedom Prize, established at Bowdoin College to stimulate appreciation of Constitutional rights and freedoms; and the Deborah Morton Award from Westbrook College, now University of New England, presented to women who have achieved high distinction in career and service or shown exceptional leadership in public life.

Isaacson graduated from Bates College in 1965 with a bachelor’s in mathematics, and earned a master’s in mathematics from Bowdoin. She holds honorary doctorates from Bates, Colby College and the University of New England. She and her husband, attorney Irving Isaacson, reside in Auburn. They have three children and seven grandchildren.

Sharon H. Abrams has been executive director of the Maine Children’s Home for Little Wanderers (MCH) since 1992, and previously taught in, then directed, MCH’s Teen Parent School Program. The Home, a statewide nonprofit whose mission is to “build and strengthen families and their children,” celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1999.

The Maine Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs established the Maine Women’s Hall of Fame in 1990, to honor women who have made an outstanding contribution to improving opportunities for all Maine women.

The three criteria for induction are, first, that the woman’s achievements have had a statewide impact; second, that her achievements have significantly improved the lives of women in Maine; and third, that her contribution has enduring value for women. Nominations for induction are reviewed by an independent panel of judges.

For more information about the Maine Women’s Hall of Fame, contact Sally Ann Parks, chair, at 207-453-6004 or P.O. Box 84, Hinckley ME 04944.

The Jewish community of Luboml, dating from the 14th century, was among the oldest in Poland. By the 1930s, Libivne (as it was called in Yiddish), had a vibrant community of 4,000 Jews. The years between the first and second World Wars were a period of great cultural ferment in this shtetl (village).

While the family and traditional religious institutions continued to play a central role, they were joined, and sometimes challenged, by modern intellectual attitudes, styles of dress and other secular influences — particularly Zionism — which increasingly influenced this corner of Eastern Europe.

Jewish life in Luboml came to an abrupt end in October 1942, when the Germans murdered almost all of the town’s Jews. Only 51 Libivners (excluding those who had emigrated before the war) survived the Holocaust.

In 1994, Aaron Ziegelman, a Libivner who emigrated to the United States in 1938, initiated the Luboml Exhibition Project to preserve the history and the memory of the “shtetl.” To date, the project has collected nearly 2,000 photographs and artifacts from more than 100 families and archives around the world, and has videotaped oral histories with many Libivners. Remembering Luboml features highlights from the collection.

A native of Hungary and an Auburn resident, Isaacson is a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and of Hessisch Lichtenau, a satellite camp of Buchenwald. Her book, Seed of Sarah: Memoirs of a Survivor (University of Illinois Press, 1990), has been a best seller for both the press and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum bookstore.

An expanded edition and a German edition of the book were published in 1991, followed by a Hungarian edition in 1993. The chamber opera Seed of Sarah, composed by Mark Polishook, premiered in 1995. A film based on the opera will be released by a London producer later this year.

Isaacson served on the governing boards at Bowdoin College and recently received its Hargraves Freedom Prize. She holds honorary doctoral degrees from Bates and Colby colleges and the University of New England.

Isaacson’s talk is part of the Bates College lecture series Spiritual Journeys: Stories of the Soul featuring individuals who represent a variety of religious traditions, disciplines and professions. The photography exhibit is sponsored by the Office of the College Chaplain, the college’s Jewish Cultural Community and the Bates history department.

Ladd Library hours fom April 5 through April 25 are are Monday through Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 1 a.m.; Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. to 10 p.m; and Sunday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Hours from April 26 through the end of the month of May are Monday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday noon to 8 p.m.; and Sunday noon to 10 p.m. Summer hours, beginning June 1, are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. The library is closed Saturdays and Sundays during the summer.

Sponsored by the Office of the Chaplain at Bates, the Spiritual Journeys lecture series features speakers from a variety of traditions who tell the stories of their spiritual awakening and development. Speakers are invited to explore how they experience a sense of the holy in their everyday lives, how their perspectives and disciplines have shaped that sacred experience, and how they understand religion as a resource or an obstacle to the life of the soul. Speakers may also address what the political and social consequences of their spirituality.

Maine Remembers the Shoah will examine the Holocaust as an historical crisis and as a continuing influence in contemporary life. “The program is designed to present new material, to stimulate discussion, and to prepare teachers and students to teach and learn about the Holocaust,” said conference organizer Steve Hochstadt, associate professor of history at Bates. Hochstadt teaches a Holocaust course at Bates.

The conference includes presentations of new research, personal memories of survivors, readings of prose, poetry, film and slide showings, and displays of teaching materials.

The conference will feature the world premiere on of the video You Ask about the Family, an interpretation of the Holocaust by Maine artist Robert Katz and Maine composer Mark Polishook, at 7 p.m. March 1 in Room 204 of the Carnegie Science Center. The video is based on Katz and Polishook’s trip to Poland to research the fate of their families.

Initially inspired by a letter Katz received from a distant relative who survived the Holocaust, You Asked about the Family fuses visual imagery, sound and narrative to address on one hand, the social climate in which the brutalities of the Holocaust occurred, and, on the other, cultural continuity, rebirth, and survival in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

The conference will also feature Judith Magyar Isaacson, Bates class of ’65 and author of the acclaimed autobiographical Holocaust memoir Seed of Sarah, reading from a work-in-progress about the Holocaust at 8:30 p.m Feb. 28, in Chase Hall Lounge.

Other sessions of interest include Steven R. Cerf, the Skolfield Professor of German at Bowdoin College discussing Anne Frank’s Short Stories: Imaginative Writing as a Mirror of Interiority, at 9 a.m., March 1, and Marcus C. Bruce, associate professor of religion at Bates College, talking about My People: Steven Spielberg, ‘Schindler’s List,’ and the Holocaust, at 11:15 a.m., March 1. Both presentations will be in Room 204 of Carnegie Science Hall.

Maine Remembers the Shoah is jointly sponsored by the departments of history, philosophy and religion at Bates, as well as the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine, the Dimmer-Bergstrom Fund and the Maine Humanities Council.