Holocaust Survivor to Speak at CLU

Holocaust survivor Clara Knopfler will speak at California Lutheran University during a special Holocaust remembrance observance Thursday.

Knopfler was a sophomore in high school in Transylvania when Hungarian Nazis took her Jewish family into custody in 1944. Her 19-year-old brother was shot to death in front of her father, who later perished in a death march. She and her mother were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp and later to work at camps in Latvia and East Prussia.

Knopfler survived and was liberated in 1945. She and her mother were the only members of their extended family to survive.

She married another survivor, immigrated to the United States with her husband and mother and taught school for 30 years. Her life's mission has been to tell the story of the Holocaust.

She lives in Thousand Oaks' University Village and has written a biography, "I Am Still Here: My Mother's Voice."

Knopfler will speak at a Yom HaShoah Ve-Hagevah, or Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day, observance. Yom HaShoah actually begins at sundown Sunday, but Knopfler will speak at 11:25 a.m. Thursday, April 11. The event will take place in CLU's Samuelson Chapel and is open to the public. Samuelson Chapel is located near the corner of Olsen Road and Campus Drive in Thousand Oaks.

Yom HaShoah marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The Israeli parliament selected the date in 1951 and adopted the full name in 1953. Although the Israeli government established the date, Jewish individuals and communities throughout the world observe the commemoration.