QNYC Event Highlight: Talk by Holocaust Survivor who Risked her Life Post-World War II as a Civil Rights Activist

Image Source: Marione Ingram/Facebook

The term “rough childhood” is an understatement. Marione Ingram was born in Nazi Germany in 1935. During World War II, neighbors told the Gestapo that her mother was Jewish. Soon thereafter, her father was beaten and pressured to divorce his mother before being coerced into working for the Luftwaffe in Belgium.

It only got worse. Ingram, age 8 at the time, and her mother escaped death camps because their city, Hamburg, was firebombed and after being denied access to air raid shelters, they were presumed dead. They survived about 18 months in hiding, dealing with constant fear and hunger. In 1952, Ingram immigrated to New York City and observed discrimination against African Americans. Impelled by her own experiences, she became a civil rights activist and jumped back into dangerous living.

During the 1960s, she worked on voter registration in the South and opened a Freedom School in Mississippi. Harassment and threats ensued, and the school was eventually torched by the Klu Klux Klan. Today she is a writer who has been published in Best American Essays and a fiber artist who has exhibited in Europe and the United States. On April 8 at the Central Queens Y, Ingram will discuss her life and memoir, The Hands of War, in an informal setting with light refreshments.

Talk by Holocaust Survivor who Risked her Life Post-World War II as a Civil Rights Activist
Central Queens Y
67-09 108th Street, Forest Hills
Monday, April 8
1:30pm – 3pm  | $6 suggested donation