Holocaust survivor will speak in Beloit

BELOIT -- Inspired by a letter from a West Branch Junior High School pupil, Holocaust survivor Siegfried Halbreich will speak Monday at West Branch Community Auditorium.
Halbreich, a California resident and retired pharmacist, survived four concentration camps and testified in trials against Nazi war criminals such as Adolf Eichmann.
He is traveling to the area at his own expense for the speech after Katie Eastep, a seventh-grader, contacted him earlier this year. Eastep said she wrote him after reading his book "Before, During, and After" about Halbreich's life in concentration camps.
Eastep said she chose the author randomly for a Holocaust unit they were doing in school. In the letter, she told Halbreich, a former Cleveland resident, where she lived and asked him more about his life.
"It's kind of exciting that I wrote to some guy I don't even know and now he's coming from Beverly Hills," Eastep said.
Eastep will introduce Halbreich. The event is open to the public.