About Noémi Ban 

Holocaust survivor Noémi Schönberger Ban, born and raised in Hungary, was working as a seventh- and eighth-grade teacher in Budapest at the onset of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. After escaping Communist Hungary with her husband and two young sons soon after the Revolution, Noémi emigrated to the United States where she learned English, earned a second education degree at the University of Missouri, and began teaching sixth grade at Oakville Elementary School near St. Louis. In 1980, Noémi was named Teacher of the Year in the Mehlville School District and was runner-up for the Missouri Teacher of the Year honor. After retiring in 1982, Noémi and her husband, also a Holocaust survivor, moved to Washington state. 

While grieving the loss of her husband, whom she cared for during the five years his health declined due to severe dementia and Parkinson’s disease, Noémi was inspired by a speech given by fellow Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate, Elie Wiesel. Noémi was moved not only to return to Auschwitz-Birkenau where she had been imprisoned and where most of her family perished, but she also dedicated the next three decades of her life to Holocaust education, making over 1,200 presentations throughout the United States and as far away as Hungary and Taiwan. Noémi was interviewed on September 8, 1996 as part of a Washington State project documenting the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and their children. This 1996 interview with Noémi Ban is now available in the archives at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In 2003, Noémi published a youth-oriented Holocaust memoir, Sharing is Healing: A Holocaust Survivor's Story. Noémi’s life and return to Auschwitz II-Birkenau was also the subject of a 2007 documentary, My Name is Noémi, filmed in Hungary, Germany and Poland from June 2006 through June 2007 by Jim Lortz, a Theatre Arts Professor at Western Washington University. Marla Bronstein, a close friend of Noémi, also created a video compilation of some of Noémi's recorded public presentations.   More information about Noémi is available at the Ray Wolpow Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes against Humanity at Western Washington University and at the Holocaust Center for Humanity in Seattle. 

Noémi received many awards for her public speaking and activism, including an Excellence in Holocaust Education Award, the Washington State Golden Apple Award, the Washington Education Association Human and Civil Rights Award, and induction into the Northwest Women’s Hall of Fame. She also received the Americanism Award from Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), a prestigious national honor presented to American citizens who have made an outstanding contribution to the nation, and honorary doctorate degrees from both Gonzaga University (1999) and Western Washington University (2013). Noémi proudly raised two sons and has five grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.