Author to Share Family Story of Twin Bond Severed By Holocaust

WORCESTER, Mass. – Eugene Pogany, author of In My Brother’s Image: Twin Brothers Separated by Faith After the Holocaust, will give a lecture titled “From Brother to Other and Back” on Monday, Oct. 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Rehm Library at the College of the Holy Cross. The lecture, sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture and funded by the Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding, is free and open to the public.

In My Brother’s Image (Viking, 2000) tells how the disparate experiences of Pogany’s father and uncle during the Holocaust irreparably severed their twin bond. Historically Hungarian Jews, Pogany’s family converted to Roman Catholicism before World War I. While his uncle became an ordained priest and was sheltered in an Italian friary during World War II, Pogany’s father and most of his family were forced into concentration camps. Following the war, both brothers immigrated to the United States, Pogany’s father converted back to Judaism and his uncle became a parish priest. Neither could reconcile his feelings toward the other and his chosen faith.

Pogany, a practicing psychologist who lives in Newton, has written and lectured for several years on subjects relating to Jewish-Christian relations, the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. His essays have appeared in the Jewish press, secular and religious journals, as chapters in books, and online. In My Brother’s Image was a finalist for a National Jewish Book Award.

The Kraft-Hiatt Fund, administered through the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, supports campus and community-wide educational initiatives that foster understanding of Judaism and Jewish culture, and dialogue between Jews and Christians. For more information, please visit our website.

About The Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture:

Established in 2001 and housed in Smith Hall, the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture provides resources for faculty and course development, sponsors conferences and college-wide teaching events, hosts visiting fellows, and coordinates a number of campus lecture series. Rooted in the College's commitment to invite conversation about basic human questions, the Center welcomes persons of all faiths and seeks to foster dialogue that acknowledges and respects differences, providing a forum for intellectual exchange that is interreligious, interdisciplinary, intercultural, and international in scope.  The Center also brings members of the Holy Cross community into conversation with the Greater Worcester community, the academic community, and the wider world to examine the role of faith and inquiry in higher education and in the larger culture.