MENSCH International Foundation presents the 2013 International Holocaust Remembrance Day Program – Jan. 29

The MENSCH International Foundation and Steven Geiger, the Foundation’s Founder, will present The 2013 International Holocaust Remembrance Day Program honoring two-time Academy Award-winning producer, BRANKO LUSTIG (“Schindler’s List,” “Gladiator”) with The 2013 MENSCH For All Seasons Award to be held at the Writer’s Guild Theater, 135 South Doheny Drive (south of Wilshire Boulevard), Beverly Hills, CA 90211 on Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 7:00 p.m. The event will also feature eight distinguished guest speakers, along with film clips.
Steven Geiger, Founder of the MENSCH International Foundation said: “This year’s event is being held in the month of January to commemorate the 68th Anniversary of the liberation Holocaust prisoners from Auschwitz. It is our privilege to honor Branko Lustig, a Holocaust survivor and an Academy Awardâ-winning producer, who along with his fellow film producers, Steven Spielberg and Gerard R. Molen brought us the film “Schindler’s List,” which remains to this day as the definitive movie of all time depicting the atrocities of the Holocaust and a German businessman named Oskar Schindler who saved thousands of Polish-Jewish refugees through his human acts of kindness. In 2005 the United Nations General Assembly designated the date of January 27th as International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is on this day that every member state of the United Nations has an obligation to honor the victims of the Holocaust and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides.”
Tickets for the event are $25 each and can be purchased by calling The MENSCH International Foundation at 760-416-3685 or online at www.menschfoundation.org. Free Parking will be provided for the event in the Writer Guild Theater’s adjacent parking garage structure located on south Wilshire Boulevard on the west side of Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills, CA.
During the course of the evening Branko Lustig will reminisce about his days in Auschwitz and his historic acceptance speech at the 1993 Academy Awards when he received the Best Picture Oscar along with fellow producers Steven Spielberg and Gerard R. Molen for the film “Schindler’s List” by saying: “My number was A3317. I am a Holocaust survivor. It’s a long way from Auschwitz to this stage. I want to thank everyone who helped me to come so far. People died in front of me at the camps. Their last words were: ‘Be a witness of my murder.’ Together we journeyed by helping Steven to make this movie. I hope I fulfilled my obligation to the innocent victims of the Holocaust. In the name of the six million Jews killed in the Shoah, and other Nazi victims, I want to thank everyone who acknowledged this movie. Thank you.” On May 2, 2011, Lustig returned to barrack No. 24 at Auschwitz, at the age of 78, to celebrate his bar mitvah (rite of passage), which he missed as a 13-year-old boy growing up, having been deported from his Croatian hometown to the death camp at the age of 10.

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