The Shoah Commemoration Service on Sunday, April 23, at Samuel Lutheran Church in Muskegon, will feature guest speaker Dr. Renata Laxova, who was one of the 669 Jewish children in Czechoslovakia saved from the Nazis by British humanitarian Sir Nicholas George Winston’s brave effort known as the Kindertransport or “children’s transport.” The service, which is free and event to the public, begins at 3:30 p.m. at the church located at 540 Houston.
Dr. Renata Lexova
Laxova will also be featured at two more Holocaust Remembrance witness and conversation events during the following two days. The Monday, April 24, event begins at 6:30 p.m. at First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1206 Whitehall Road, in Muskegon. The second is on Tuesday, April 25, at 12:30 p.m. at West Shore Community College in Ludington.
All three events are being organized by the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies – Muskegon.
Born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, Laxova will provide her firsthand account of the Kindertransport, a rescue effort devised by the unassuming and humble Sir Nicholas Winston. His plan provided safe passage to England and finding homes for the children, but was not made known to the world for 40 years, until the late 1980s. Dubbed the “British Schindler” by the British press, Winston was awarded the Czech Republic’s highest honor, the Order of the White Lion, in October 2014. Featured on CBS’ 60 Minutes, Winston died at the age of 106 in July 2015.
Laxova returned to her country and lived under Communist rule until the Prague Spring 1968 when she and her family left for England and then the United States.
For more information, email chgs.muskegon@gmail.com or call Congregation B’nai Israel at (231) 722-2702.