Internment camp survivor to speak at library

The Palestine Public Library will hold a really cool program at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday as part of the last day of the “VANISHED — German-American Civilian Internment 1941-1948” exhibit.

Michael Luick-Thams, scholar and the director of Traces, a non-profit educational organization TRACES Center for History and Culture based in St. Paul, Minn. that created the exhibit, will give a talk at the library. Accompanying him will be Heidi Gurcke Donald who lived in one of the camps as a child and wrote a book about it called “We Were Not the Enemy.”

I had the opportunity to talk to both of them on the phone Saturday, and I am really excited about this program.

Heidi Gurcke Donald tells such a fascinating story (Read the Gurke family history here) that I know everyone is going to enjoy listening to her story.

Photo: Heidi Gurke Donald's family photographed at Camp Crystal Citiy in 1943