'Four Pebbles' Helped 9-Year-Old Girl Survive the Nazi Death Camps

Marion Blumenthal Lazan spent 6½ years of her childhood imprisoned, forced to live in refugee and prison camps simply because she was Jewish.

Taken by the Nazis just one month before her family's planned escape to America, she lived among 600 Jewish prisoners in barracks built only for 100 people.

She was given a straw mattress and a thin blanket and quickly realized that the wagon she thought stored firewood for the small oven in the barracks actually carried dead and naked bodies stacked on top of one another.

Describing herself as a very frightened 9-year-old at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, she said she never got to brush her teeth, saw no trees or flowers, and watched as everyone was forced to treat their frostbite with warm urine. A ration of one slice of bread a day was cut back to one slice a week. The one shower a month that the prisoners were given was feared since they didn't know if water or gas would be turned on.

"Death was an everyday occurrence," Lazan said. "Bodies could not be taken away fast enough. We as children saw things we never should have seen."

Lazan, 75, shared her stories on Tuesday with students at Heritage Grove Middle School. While her experience was haunting, she told the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders that her message was about perseverance, determination, faith and hope.

"They are the very last generation to hear these accounts firsthand," language arts teacher Beth Kuykendall said. "And then when all the survivors are gone, it is up to the students to share the stories because it is the only way we can prevent this from happening again."

Lazan said her story is one that "Anne Frank might have told had she survived."

Born in 1934, Lazan told the students that the rise of Nazi Germany began with restrictions. Jews were not allowed in the theater or in parks or in swimming pools. Schools were closed and non-Jews could not speak with Jews. Her father, who served Germany in World War I, was forced to sell his business.

By December 1939, Lazan was in a detention camp in Holland, which Germany soon invaded. She spent time in both the Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen camps.

Lazan occupied her time with games such as squishing lice between her fingers.

She dreamed that she would one day have a bed, a bath and some bread.

She invented her own game that gave her hope. She said if she could find four pebbles of the same size, then each of her four family members would survive the camps.

"This game gave me hope," she said.

"Four Perfect Pebbles, a Holocaust Story," Lazan's award-winning memoir, was published in 1996 and has been translated into Dutch, German and Japanese.

In spring 1945, when Lazan was 10 years old, she was taken by train to Eastern Europe with her mother, father and brother.  After being en route for about two weeks without food, water or sanitary facilities, the train was liberated by the Russian army.

At 10½ years old, Lazan weighed just 35 pounds, about the size of a toddler. She and the other passengers were shaved to rid them of disease-carrying lice, and her stomach was barely tolerant of the new nourishment it received.

"It was a wonderful feeling to be free at last," she said.

Her father died of typhus just after the family was freed. Her mother now is 102 years old and her brother lives in California with his wife.

Lazan went on to America, learned English and graduated eighth in her class out of 267 students at Peoria Central High School . She is married to Nathaniel Lazan and has three children and nine grandchildren.

Lazan, who now lives in New York, has spoken about her experiences to more than 1 million people.

She told the students at Heritage Grove that love, respect and tolerance will lead to peace.

"By listening, I hope you prevent our past from becoming your future," she said. "Let us look for similarities and respect the differences. … Be kind and good and respectful to one another, please."

She also urged the students to retell her story so that history does not repeat itself.

"In a few short years, we are not going to be here any longer to give a first-hand account," Lazan said. "Please share my stories. Share them with your friends. Share them with your relatives and someday share them with your children. It is you who has to bear witness."

Eighth-grader Jordan Barry said she is saddened that something like this could have happened.

"It made me think of how lucky I am," she said.

Eighth-grade student Sydney Tran said she was amazed that Lazan could keep her faith through her ordeal.

"She inspired me to keep faith and hope," she said.

"It was brave of her to share her story," eighth-grade student Jessica Tam said.

For more on Lazan, visit www.fourperfectpebbles.com.