Local author Irene Stern Frielich is the daughter of a German Holocaust survivor. In 2017 she re-discovered the testimony video her father had made just prior to his death in 1994, and immersed herself in her father's world of survival, loss, and hope. In this engaging multi-media presentation, Irene retraces the Stern-Herzfeld family's footsteps as they escape their comfortable home in Germany on Kristallnacht in 1938 and cross the border to the Netherlands. The family lives there in relative safety until the Nazis invade and turn their world upside down. Using photos, interviews, audio and video recordings, Irene covers the period from 1938 through liberation in 1945. She brings to life the people and places portrayed in her memoir, including a coffee roaster, a baker, government officials, farmers, and clergy, all of whom demonstrated courage, compassion, and kindness to help her family survive. She enters the one-time German home of her family, visits the synagogue in Holland where her father became a bar mitzvah, and crouches in the attic where her father hid for 2 1/2 years. And she describes unexpected encounters with descendants of people who knew her family so many decades ago.

Irene's memoir, Shattered Stars, Healing Hearts: Unraveling My Father's Holocaust Survival Story was published in October 2023. She speaks internationally about her family's story and has articles about her family published in German and Dutch media. Irene lives in Sharon, MA, and is the owner of EnVision Performance Solutions, an award-winning instructional design consulting firm in Massachusetts. 

Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing after the program.