Holocaust Lecture Series with Holocaust survivor Mary Eckstein 2025

On January 23, Holocaust survivor Mary Eckstein will share her story with students, faculty and staff from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Room PSD 108 of the Public Safety Building.

Eight years old when the Holocaust began, Mary Eckstein was forced into the Budapest Ghetto by the Arrow Cross Party. Mary remembers she “was always scared and hungry” throughout the ordeal, and her family was constantly trying to escape. She eluded death and was saved when the Russian army liberated Budapest in 1945.

After the Holocaust, Mary returned to school and later became an optician.  In 1955, she married Joe Eckstein who was drafted into the Hungarian Red Army and served as a gunsmith after his liberation from Auschwitz by the Russian army in 1945.