Auschwitz survivor visits WMU and K College

Arnošt Lustig stops in Kalamazoo as a lecturer for the Gwen Frostic Reading Series on Tuesday

By Caroline Lampinen
Western herald

(Photo courtesy Margaret von Steinen) Arnost Lustig, left, and Vaclav Havel, former president of Czechoslavakia and first president of the Czech Republic, receives honorary doctorates in Prague from Western Michigan University in 2006.

Famed Czech novelist, Auschwitz survivor, and Western Michigan University’s Prague Summer Program original faculty member, Arnošt Lustig, is visiting Kalamazoo from his hometown of Prague, Czech Republic, this week.

Tuesday through Thursday, both WMU and Kalamazoo College are hosting events that will give the general public free opportunities to learn from and experience Lustig.

Events include a reading as part of the Gwen Frostic Reading Series on Tuesday, a showing of the documentary film “Fighter” on Wednesday and a brown bag lecture-luncheon on Thursday.

Shoshana Macintosh, WMU English major who met Lustig through the 2008 Prague Summer Program, is excited to meet him again.

“I feel so honored, as should all of WMU, to have such an intriguing, accomplished man visit our campus,” Macintosh said.

Lustig is renowned throughout the Czech Republic not only for his acclaimed writing, but also for his appearances on both Czech talk shows and puppet shows for children, said Prague Summer Program Director, professor Richard Katrovas.

“He is beloved for his fiction, which chronicles love and passion, even redemption, in the midst of that hell which was the Holocaust. Utterly void of sentimentality, with a cold eye on the darkest regions of the human heart, Arnošt Lustig testifies that love and decency don’t die even in the midst of the worst horrors humankind may perpetrate and suffer,” Katrovas said.

Lustig has published a number of short stories and more than 10 novels, including the most recent “Lovely Green Eyes” (2002) and “Waiting for Leah” (2004). His honors include the Franz Kafka Prize (2008), an honorary doctorate from WMU (2006), the Karel Capek Award, an American Institute of Arts and Letters Award, the Jewish National Book Award (twice) and an Emmy.

The week’s events are as follows:

Tuesday: Gwen Frostic Reading Series.
Hosted at WMU’s Little Theatre, selections from Lustig’s book “Lovely Green Eyes” will be read starting at 8 p.m.

“Lustig will be at the reading. Three of us will read selections of ‘Lovely Green Eyes,’” said Prague Summer Program Coordinator Margaret Von Steinen.

The three readers include Von Steinen; Katrovas’s daughter and WMU music student, Ema Katrovas; and WMU doctoral student and two-time Prague Summer Program TA, Marin Heinritz.

Following the reading will be a question and answer session, book signing, and reception.

The book is characteristic of his style and theme, as it chronicles the experiences of 15-year-old Hanka “Skinny” Kaudersova through World War II and it’s after-effects. Skinny is a Jewish girl that escapes Auschwitz and survives by working in a brothel, posing as a gentile and lying about her age.
Wednesday: “The Fighter” viewing

At 7 p.m. Kalamazoo College will present “The Fighter” at the Dalton Theatre, located within the Light Fine Arts building on the corner of Academy and Thompson.

Lustig will be attending the film.

“The Fighter” is a documentary about two friends, Lustig and Jan Weiner, revisiting their traumatic pasts with two very different perspectives. Shot when both were living in the United States, filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev invited the men on a trip back to Europe to narrate their rich histories.

“[The documentary] becomes the personal story of the battle between two very different men, one the bitter, angry fighter, the other, the wise and cynical philosopher, who have very different ways of dealing with memories of the Holocaust,” Von Steinen said.

The film has won Best Documentary in the Galway Film Festival, the Audience Award at the Hampton’s Film Festival, Special Jury Citation at Karlovy Vary, and Best Documentary at Newport.

Thursday: Brown Bag lecture
Held at noon on the 10th floor of Sprau Tower, the observation deck, the brown bag lecture is open to anyone on campus.

“Lustig did teach fiction writing through the fable … for many years and that’s what he’ll talk about at the brown bag lecture,” Von Steinen said.

Richard Katrovas will facilitate the event, and those attending are encouraged to bring their own lunches to the event.

This lecture is expected to be the most intimate event of the three and will likely give participants the greatest chance to be more personal with the already amiable Lustig.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Oct 27 2008. Filed under Campus, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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