The local Chabad of St. John’s is hosting a Holocaust survivor to talk about her experience and that of her family.

Eighty-nine-year-old Tuky Treitel was just a child when the Nazis invaded her native Budapest, Hungary in 1944.

Treitel, who came from a prominent local family, now lives in Montreal and has an amazing story to tell according to Rabbi Chanan Chernitsky.

He says Trietel was hidden on a local farm under a false identity.

She was seven years old when the Nazis invaded, and incredibly, she, her parents and ten siblings all survived, “which is very, very unusual,” says Rabbi Chernitsky. “A large family, all of them surviving, and…that’s part of her story.”

Rabbi Chernitsky says as time passes, it’s becoming more important to hear stories about the Holocaust first hand.

“We’re in a race against time,” says Chernitsky, because there are fewer and fewer survivors, “and there’s more and more hatred.”

“I get asked all the time if we’ve learned our lesson from the Holocaust, and the answer is ‘absolutely not.’ We’re living in times of rampant anti-Semitism, even in our dear…Canada and our dear, dear Newfoundland and Labrador, which is very…unfortunate, and the best antidote is to come and hear a Holocaust survivor – somebody who paid the price for unchecked hatred.”

Trietel will speak next Monday, May 25th at the Bruneau Centre in St. John’s.