Blawnox woman presents story of her parents, Holocaust survivors, June 30 at Fox Chapel library

Kurt and Edith Leuchter spent their childhoods in Europe hiding from Nazis during World War II. That they survived the war was one miracle. That they found one another again in the United States was another.

Their daughter, Debbie Leuchter Stueber of Blawnox, plans to present her parents’ story June 30 at Fox Chapel’s Cooper-Siegel Community Library in a program titled “A Story of Love and Resilience.”

“Based on everything that’s going on in the country, like so much antisemitism and hate and homophobia, I think it’s of the utmost importance to teach tolerance,” Stuebe said.

The program is scheduled for 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the Program Room at the library on 403 Fox Chapel Road.

Stueber’s presentation features family photographs and documents, including her father’s passport with a swastika on it, letters from relatives in concentration camps and more.

“I think now more than ever it’s important to educate people on the Holocaust,” said Stueber, whose family is Jewish. “Not just students, but adults as well. … One day there will be no more Holocaust survivors left, and I’m their legacy. It’s my torch to bear, and I want to make sure their experience and story lives on forever.”

The Leuchters, who are retired and live in Palm Beach County, Fla., will participate virtually in a question-and-answer session following the presentation.

“Years from now people are going to forget all together what’s happening,” Kurt Leuchter said. “It’s important that we teach our kids these things.”

He said he often encourages youths to read as much as they can, listen to different media outlets and “use your head and decide for yourself what’s right or what’s wrong.”

Edith Leuchter, 94, was born in Bruchsal, Germany. She said she enjoys sharing her and her husband’s story and experiences with the help of her daughter.

“I want to be part of it,” she said.

One photo in Stueber’s presentation shows the deportation of Edith and others from Bruchsal to the Gurs internment camp in southwestern France. She was later taken to another camp, Rivesaltes, in the south of France.

A play based on her life, “The Girl With the Hat Box” by Lisa Sommerfeldt, is set to premiere in Bruchsal on Oct. 13. Some members of the family are planning to attend the premiere, Stueber said.

Kurt Leuchter, 93, was born in Vienna, Austria. He was taken to the Camp des Milles internment camp.

An organization called OSE, or Children’s Aid Society, saved Kurt and Edith from the camps and placed them in an orphanage in France called Masgelier, where they met in 1942 as young teens.

OSE is credited with saving more than 5,000 children during World War II.

Edith and Kurt hid from the Nazis under the fake names Claude Lambert and Edith Labe.

However, survival meant moving from place to place to prevent discovery, and Kurt and Edith were separated.

“I was hiding in a little village, which had about maybe one church, four houses and a city hall,” Kurt said. “The woman that hid me, she took me to the mayor and she said to the mayor, ‘I need a false ID for this young one.’ ”

He also recalled hiding in a basement closet of a delinquent home for boys and a woman convincing the Gestapo to stop searching it.

Edith remembers moving to different schools and orphanages during those years.

Kurt would join the French Underground and fight in the resistance for about a year.

Both emigrated to the United States separately in 1946 and spotted one another just by chance in New York City in January 1947. They would marry in 1950.

Kurt Leuchter was drafted into the Army to fight in the Korean War and worked as an aerospace engineer for Grumman Aerospace on the guidance navigation system for the lunar landing modules of Apollo 11 and 13.

A model of the module is one of Kurt Leuchter’s prized possessions.

Stueber, 61, grew up in a hamlet of Long Island, N.Y., called Commack. She described her parents as very loving and extremely overprotective.

“I think my father, understandably so, thought there was a Nazi around every corner,” Stueber said. “Not literally, but he was always afraid something was going to happen to me because he wanted to ensure my safety based on what happened to him.”

Stueber moved to the Fox Chapel area about 31 years ago and has lived in Blawnox for 19 years.

She has been telling her father’s story for roughly 15 years at Fox Chapel Area School District’s Dorseyville Middle School. Stueber began including her mother’s part a few years ago.

Registration for the program can be completed until 4 p.m. June 30 at coopersiegel.librarycalendar.com/event/story-love-and-resilience.

A video of one of her presentations for the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh can be found on YouTube.