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Local Author Series with Jeannette Grunhaus de Gelman

"On Sunny Days We Sang"

Join award-winning author Jeannette Grunhaus de Gelman as she presents "On Sunny Days We Sang: A Holocaust Story of Survival and Resilience." With the destruction of Polish Jewry as a backdrop, hear the remarkable story of her parents' lives in war-torn Europe and their journey to a new life in Venezuela. Best for ages 18 yrs. +. Registration required. For information please contact 305-931-5512 or lefrakp@mdpls.org

Biography:

Jeannette Grunhaus de Gelman is a Venezuelan professor, researcher, and writer. She was born in Szczecin, Poland in 1946, to Polish Holocaust survivors who came from Wlodawa. Her family emigrated to Venezuela, settling in Maracaibo. Gelman received her undergraduate degree in French from Wellesley College. In 1970, she went on to receive an MA in Spanish Literature from New York University via their extension program in Madrid and in 1976 was awarded her MA in the teaching of French from the Université de Paris III. She was a professor of French Language and Literature at the Universidad del Zulia in Maracaibo from 1971 to 1996.

In 2013 she moved to Miami, Florida with a purpose in mind. As Second-Generation Holocaust Survivor, her parents' trauma was always present in her life and she felt the need to understand what happened to the family she never had. From 2013 to 2018 she was accepted as a Research Scholar at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, focusing on Holocaust studies.

As a result, she wrote On Sunny Days We Sang that was first published in Spanish in 2018 under the title En los días claros cantábamos. It is the author's first full length work, telling the story of her parents' survival in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War.

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