Students come to college campuses looking to get an education in a variety of different subjects, but last night, students in Joe Gomez’s Film and the Holocaust class got a lesson that can’t be found in any book.

The students welcomed Holocaust survivor Gizella Abramson as their guest speaker. Abramson, a native of Poland, has lived in Raleigh since 1970, and spends her time speaking at schools and universities throughout the country.

Abramson gave her speech, entitled “A Narrative of Survival,” before the class in Caldwell G107.

Abramson’s reputation as a speaker had even managed to draw in a small group of students from outside the class.

Jessica Gladstone was one such student.

“I had heard a few Holocaust speakers before, and I was looking forward to hearing her speak,” Gladstone, a graduate student in graphic design, said. “It was challenging and difficult to hear. I’m glad that N.C. State brought her in to give students the opportunity to hear her.” Abramson began the speech by telling of the many challenges she faced growing up as a second-class citizen in Poland, where attitudes towards Jewish people were widely critical even before the Holocaust began.

The narrative of the speech followed her life as World War II broke out, sending her father into service with the Polish Army, and continued as Abramson found her friends disappearing around her. Her story continued as Abramson left her mother and father, never to see them again, and went to live with her aunt and uncle, then in the Jewish ghetto and eventually Maidaneck — one of the infamous concentration camps operated by the Germans in Poland.

Many students in the class were particularly affected by the incidents from Abramson’s life that showed the cruelty of the Nazis, yet Abramson stressed throughout the speech that the reason she spoke about her experiences to young people was she knew hearing about them could help young people appreciate freedom and democracy, things Abramson said are often taken for granted in America today.

She stressed that even after the things she saw and experienced during the Holocaust, she does not hate anyone for what happened to her.

“When I first came to America, I was filled with hate towards Germany and the German people,” Abramson said. “The hatred would not permit me to eat, sleep or do anything. I eventually came to realize that when you hate, nothing happens to the person you hate, but you are killing yourself inside.”

Abramson came to America the year after the war ended, an uneducated young woman who was still recovering from the mental and emotional wounds she had suffered during her time in the concentration camps.

However, Abramson told her uncle about her desire to learn, and he arranged for several friends of his who were professors at Columbia University to teach her.

She was eventually able to earn a scholarship from Sarah Lawrence College. After graduating, she began to work as a teacher, moving several times before ending up in Raleigh in 1970. During that time, Abramson was working as a substitute teacher, when a chance encounter with a curious social studies teacher changed the course of Abramson’s life.

“One of my fellow teachers had heard that I was a Holocaust survivor, and began asking me questions about my experiences,” Abramson said. “I looked in the social studies book she was teaching from, and I nearly collapsed! The entire book had about two lines dealing with the death of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust. I decided that students needed to learn that behind the numbers, there were human beings. So began Abramson’s new life as an esteemed Holocaust speaker. Some students in the audience had already heard Abramson speak, but enjoyed it so much they decided to return to see her again.

“This was the third time I’ve seen her speak,” Nicole Opyr, a recent graduate in film studies, said. “When [Professor] Joe [Gomez] told me she was coming to speak, I decided to come see her again. The story has always been a little different each time I have heard it, and you always get a different part of her experiences from the speech.”

Abramson said she once spoke every day for 27 years during one period, yet she said she never once, during this remarkable streak, strayed from her teaching background.

“You are the generation that must hear the preciousness of freedom,” Abramson said, addressing the class in a theme she echoed from earlier in her speech.