Holocaust museum president speaking in Elgin

Sam Harris, member of the Rotary Club of Northbrook and board president of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie, will be the featured speaker at the Dundee Township Rotary Club luncheon meeting at noon on Tuesday, May 4 at the Holiday Inn, 495 Airport Road, Elgin.

For many years, Harris, 73, kept his memories of surviving a Nazi concentration camp to himself, seldom sharing his childhood experiences. Through the friendships he forged through Rotary, Harris had the courage to tell his story publicly. Rotarians also gave him and a group of local Holocaust survivors the encouragement they needed to begin planning a museum that would keep their memories alive.

Members of the Dundee Township Rotary Club recently visited the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. The 65,000-square-foot building houses 2,000 recorded testimonies from survivors, mostly local residents, as well as photographs, artifacts, and an original volume of the Nuremberg trial transcripts. It also features a Nazi-era rail car, the same type used to relocate people to concentration camps, which Harris helped secure. The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center opened in April 2009.

Harris lost his parents and most of his siblings in concentration camps. After the war, he and his sister Sara were sent to the United States by their older sister Rosa, who had married in the camps, and they lived in a foster home in Chicago. Both were eventually adopted, and he was raised by a Northbrook family.

Joining Rotary in 1970 was one of the best things to happen in his life, says Harris. "Being a Rotarian has guided my life. Of all the things I've been involved in, Rotary has been the best," he explains.

All members of the community are welcome to attend this meeting and to hear the story of Sam Harris and the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center.

Cost for the luncheon is $14. For information or for reservations, call Gary Gundersen, Dundee Township Rotary Club president-elect, at (847) 888-4040, ext. 224. Final registration date is April 30.