ZOOM - Unmasking the "Counterfeit Countess": How Two Historians Uncovered the True Story of a Jewish Heroine

Course | Registration opens 1/21/2025 8:00 AM EST

OLLI York Online class York, PA 17403 United States
Zoom (link will be sent the day before the class)
Members and nonmembers
5/16/2025 (one day)
11:00 AM-12:30 PM EST on Fri
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$20.00
$8.00

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ZOOM - Unmasking the "Counterfeit Countess": How Two Historians Uncovered the True Story of a Jewish Heroine

Course | Registration opens 1/21/2025 8:00 AM EST

In German-occupied Lublin Poland during WWII, the Countess Suchodolska, a Polish Christian relief worker, rescued thousands of Polish victims of Nazi persecution through face-to-face negotiations with Nazi officials. At Majdanek concentration camp, where 63,000 Jews were gassed or shot to death, she delivered food for thousands of prisoners. Under the noses of the SS guards, she used the deliveries as cover to smuggle messages and weapons to resistance members in the camp. Learn how two Holocaust historians uncovered the truth about the Countess: she was Jewish mathematician Janina Mehlberg. 

  • Suggested reading: Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Sliwa, The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles during the Holocaust (Simon & Schuster, 2024), https://www.counterfeitcountess.com. 
Elizabeth White

Elizabeth B. White, Ph.D. worked at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as historian and Research Director for its Center for the Prevention of Genocide. Previously, she spent a career investigating Nazi criminals and human rights violators for the US Department of Justice. Her final position there was Deputy Chief and Chief Historian of the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section. She is the co-author of The Counterfeit Countess: The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles during the Holocaust, published by Simon & Schuster in 2024: https://www.counterfeitcountess.com.