Marion Blumenthal Lazan's story is one Anne Frank might have told had she lived.

For 28 years she has been driven to tell how she survived the Holocaust, and at age 72 she still wants to reach as many young ears as she can.

"This is the very last generation who will see firsthand someone who lived through those horrid years and have their questions answered," Lazan said in a telephone interview from her home in Hewlett, N.Y. "They can read books, they can see movies, but it's not the same."

A 1953 graduate of Peoria Central High School, Lazan returns to Central Illinois this week with two public appearances, plus stops just for students at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Decatur and at schools in Bement, Stewardson-Strasburg, Tolono and Tuscola.

The Decatur Public Schools Foundation is providing $2,400 for two assemblies at Thomas Jefferson, one for the school's eighth-graders, one for eighth-graders from Garfield Montessori School, Johns Hill Magnet School and Stephen Decatur Middle School, and to give a signed copy of her young adult book, "Four Perfect Pebbles," to each student who attends.

Michelle Anderson, language arts and social studies resource specialist for the Decatur School District, said the grant is providing eighth-graders a unique opportunity to glimpse the lack of respect for different cultures during the Holocaust and to study it afterward.

Indeed, if nothing else, Lazan hopes students who hear her understand how important it is for people to avoid stereotyping a group of people from the actions of a few and following a leader blindly.

That's what the Nazis did in Germany, escalating their violence against the Jews on Nov. 9, 1938, by smashing the windows of their stores. Marion was 4 at the time.

The Blumenthals - Walter and Ruth and their children Albert and Marion - had already fled to Hanover from Hoya and eventually made it to Holland but were unable to escape before 1940 and the Nazis occupied that country as well.

For the next 6½ years, the family was forced to live in refugee, transit and prison camps that included Westerbork in Holland and for the last 18 months the notorious Bergen-Belsen in Germany where Frank also was imprisoned and died in 1945.

"I probably did see her," Lazan said. "She was six years older than I was and a teenager, so she probably didn't pay much attention to me."

Impossible to forget was the sight of wagons filled with what Lazan at first thought was firewood only to realize what she was seeing was actually dead, naked bodies. At Bergen-Belsen, prisoners ate only one meal per day, some watery soup containing grisly meat and turnips and sometimes a slice of bread.

"We were always afraid of what would happen next, who would die next," Lazan said.

The title of her book is based on one of the imaginary games she used to play, telling herself she and her family would survive each time she could find four pebbles of the same size and shape.

The Blumenthals did survive, although Walter died of typhus soon after they were liberated. Lazan emigrated to Peoria with her mother and brother in 1948, and today lives in New York with her husband Nathaniel.

They have three grown children, nine grandchildren, and her mother Ruth lives nearby in her own apartment and will celebrate her 100th birthday Feb. 7.

"Hitler did not win," Lazan said. "I hope no other child is ever challenged the way I was challenged, but I also hope no one ever forgets."

Theresa Churchill can be reached at tchurchill@herald-review.com or 421-7978.