Holocaust survivor to speak on campus

Doris Fogel will present the annual talk by a Holocaust survivor, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Judaism and Jewish Culture, on Sunday, April 24, at 7 p.m. in Wallenberg Hall inside the Denkmann Memorial Building (3520 7th Ave., Rock Island). The Center hosts this annual presentation by a Holocaust survivor in the belief that it is important to constantly be vigilant and mindful of the horrors of the Holocaust and its causes, especially as its eyewitnesses and victims are almost gone from our midst. Fogel will discuss her life story and the importance of never forgetting the stories of those who lived through the Holocaust. The presentation is free and open to the public.

Doris (Warschawski) Fogel was born in 1934 in Berlin, Germany. Her father died at the age of 29 in 1935 of natural causes, which led to her mother suffering a “semi’” nervous breakdown. Fortunately, Doris’ aunt, uncle and cousin, who lived in the same building, cared for her as her mother recovered.

As the Nazis consolidated their power, all five family members left for Shanghai, China, the only place in the world that required no entry visa or affidavit to enter, in 1939. They arrived as “stateless refugees” in Shanghai, where they spent the next eight years in the Hongkew Ghetto, living in internment camps among the starving Chinese citizenry.

When WWII ended, many Jews in the United States sponsored Jewish refugee families. Families from Peoria, Illinois, sponsored Doris’ family, and she attended 8th grade, high school and Bradley University in Peoria. She married her husband, Sam, an attorney in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1961. Sam passed away nine years ago. After living in Fort Wayne for 52 Years, Doris moved to Chicago to be near her three married children and eight grandchildren.

Doris has told her story in many schools around the country, and has been on the Speakers’ Bureau of the Jewish Federations of North America. Currently she is a speaker at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Chicago. She has traveled all over the country speaking in churches, to civic groups, and at Yom Hashoa commemorations. In 2014 Doris was the featured speaker at the Illinois Holocaust Commemoration at the Illinois State House in Springfield.

Prior to moving to Chicago, Doris twice served as President of Congregation Achduth Vesholom, the Reform Temple in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. She retired in 2013 as the executive director of the Ft. Wayne Jewish Federation. For her good works she was awarded the Sagamore of the Wabash, the highest honor bestowed upon a Hoosier resident, by the governor of Indiana.