The Museum of Boulder and the Boulder JCC proudly collaborate to bring you this Thursday's speaker for the 12th season of Boulder Conversations with Extraordinary People with guest speaker Marion Kreith! This series highlights the innovative people whose connection to our city makes Boulder the remarkable place it is today. This season’s theme is Diversity and Partnership, and together, the Museum of Boulder and the Boulder JCC have chosen to collaborate with eight impactful Boulder organizations that have made immense contributions to the living history of our community. The community has requested to return this series, Boulder Conversations with Extraordinary People, for a 12th season after a COVID hiatus. It is a unique and wonderful experience to have someone welcome you into their life's journey. Sitting with someone's story can illuminate the moments that shaped people's values and led them on extraordinary paths.
Marion Finkels Kreith was born in Altona, Germany, in 1927. Her family fled Germany in 1938 to escape the Nazis. After three harrowing years crossing Europe living some time in Belgium, they received visas to travel to Cuba and boarded a ship in Portugal in 1941. In Havana, they found safety from the Holocaust, and Marion worked as a teenager in the flourishing diamond business there to support her family. In 1946, the family was able to immigrate to the United States. She has lived in Boulder, Colorado since 1959. Those years of uncertainty and constant moving have left a lasting imprint on her life. But she will correct you if you suggest that growing up in Germany during World War II has left her fearful. “It’s not fear,” she says. “It’s just that, even after all these years, I have a constant awareness below the surface that something awful might happen.” Yet, Marion talks about her long life, with its extraordinary experiences, without bitterness, and feels honored to share her story this Thursday. “I have immense gratefulness for the richness of my life,” she says. “It has been exceedingly and unexpectedly full.”
Working with the Museum of Boulder, choosing Marion was more than just exploring stories from Boulder locals. “The way we arrived at featuring Marion felt meaningfully serendipitous. Bringing Marion's story to our community is personally meaningful because it was my grandmother's dying wish.” States Emily Zinn Museum of Boulders Director of Education. “For this season of the Boulder Conversations with Extraordinary People series, we had decided to approach partner organizations and ask them to choose speakers they want highlighted. Doing so was a way to check our biases and avoid choosing speakers from an insular network. One of the partners we approached was the JCC. I strongly desired to feature Marion to fulfill my grandmother's hope to share her amazing experiences with Boulder. Still, I did not mention her name on a call with Nancy Lipsey, Senior Director of Programs, until she mentioned that we have Holocaust survivors in Boulder that the JCC would like to recognize. I told her that Marion and her late husband, Frank, were very close friends of my family and that I would be honored to ask her to speak. I admit that it felt that the universe wanted the stars to align and point toward Marion.”
The Museum of Boulder's local history institution's responsibility is to connect people to the stories of our community and inform the community we are building. Marion's young life was shaped by anti-Semitism, which is a present concern today. We have much to learn from her that we can apply to our own lives today. Oral histories provide insight into people's lives and experiences of history in different ways than other historical sources. People's memories can illuminate the many different experiences individuals had during a period in history and remind us that history is ever-present in shaping our lives today. To hear more about Marion's story and life experience, join the Museum of Boulder and the Boulder JCC for Boulder Conversations with Extraordinary People: Marion Kreith; buy tickets through this link.