Before she died in 1974, Felicia Bornstein Lubliner wrote about her harrowing experiences in ghettos and concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Poland. Her son, Irv, compiled and published her stories as "Only Hope: A Survivor’s Stories of the Holocaust," contributing its foreword and afterword. He will share excerpts, reflecting on her strength, his own experience as a child of survivors, and the process of bringing her work to light. In a handwritten essay, Felicia wrote: “Follow me into Auschwitz and spend a day there… Try, if you will, to feel, even for a moment, that you could have been one of them…” Through his mother’s writings, the instructor invites you to journey back in time, to bear witness to the Holocaust, and to see history through the eyes of one who lived—and endured—it.
Irv Lubliner is a professor emeritus at Southern Oregon University (SOU), where his specialty was mathematics education. During his 40-year teaching career, he led seminars for teachers in 39 states and gave over 350 conference presentations, including several keynote addresses. Since retiring in 2014, he has taught math, music, and literature classes for OLLI at SOU, where he also served on the governing board. In 2019, he created Felabra Press and published “Only Hope,” a compilation of his mother’s writings about her experiences during the Holocaust, and has since dedicated himself to sharing her powerful stories through presentations for teen and adult audiences nationwide (including 87 OLLI campuses).
