NESSE GODIN In the shadow of a life marked with violence, Holocaust survivor Nesse Godin has found comfort in helping educate others about moving on from tragedy.

Godin is a survivor of the Stutthof Concentration Camp, four labor camps and a death march. She will speak Oct. 12 at 7 p.m. at Fullerton Auditorium in the second part of a fall speaker series sponsored by the Limestone College Chaplain’s Office.

The series “Through the Darkness: Toward the Light” is intended to help heal the wounds of the Gaffney community after the serial killings here.

“Cherokee County had five innocent people taken from our community in a very random and callous way. It’s important to take time to think about what has happened in our community and how we move on from this tragedy,” said Rev. Ron Singleton, college chaplain and pastor of Limestone Street United Methodist Church. “We have to believe in hope and goodness as we work to promote healing in our community. Nesse is a wonderful example of a person who has chosen the path of goodness to overcome evil in her life.”

Godin lived with her parents and two brothers in Lithuania until her city was occupied by the German Nazis on June 26, 1941. In the weeks that followed, Nazi killing units and Lithuanian collaborators shot about 1,000 Jews in the nearby Kuziai forest.

“In August, we were forced to move into a ghetto where we lived in constant fear and hunger,” Godin recalled. “There I witnessed many ‘selections,’ during which men, women and children were taken to their deaths. My father was among them.

“In 1944 as the Soviet army approached, the remaining Jews were deported to the Stutthof concentration camp. There I was given the number 54015,” she said.

Godin was freed by Soviet troops in 1945 and spent the next five years in a displaced persons camp in Feldafing, Germany, before she immigrated to the United States.

Godin has spent her adult life educating people by sharing her memories about the Holocaust. Her appearance at Limestone College is co-sponsored by the South Carolina Council on the Holocaust.