On March 30, all Bethlehem eighth grade and tenth grade students were invited to hear a moving presentation by Mrs. Kati Preston, a “hidden child” of the Holocaust.
Mrs. Preston offered the students her first-hand account of the traumatic historical events under Nazi occupation in her home country of Hungary during two presentations at the middle school and the high school. She told the story of what her country and family looked like before the war and what happened when being Jewish became dangerous.
It was the choices and power of just one person — a woman who sheltered a five-year-old Kati in a barn at her farm — that made the difference in her survival. Although Mrs. Preston’s story is one of survival it is also about the power of the human spirit. Her memoirs have recently been published in a book called “Closing the Circle: From Holocaust to Healing.”
Thank you to Mrs. Kati Preston for this gift of storytelling and an unforgettable history lesson she shared with our students!
View Kati Preston’s BCHS March 30 presentation on YouTube.