Holocaust Survivor Brings Message Of Hope To Evansville Students

Despite being a young child, Alisa Palmeri remembers the night she and some members of her family fled their home in Yugoslavia to escape the pending arrival of Nazi soldiers.

It began a weeks-long journey — by foot through the Dinaric Alps, by taxis through Albania and by boat across the Adriatic Sea — that brought her family to safety at the boot of Italy.

The Jewish family eventually settled into the town of Amendola, where little Alisa and her family were welcomed and accepted.

“It was a special place. It became a turning point for me and my family,” Palmeri, now 77, told students at Holy Rosary School during a recent visit to Evansville.

She had to stop speaking her native Serbian and learn Italian, which for a young child was not that hard, she said. In addition to learning a new language and culture, she and her family also were taken in by the local Catholic church, San Antonio.

“It was a very important place,” Palmeri said, who noted religion was not talked about much in her hometown. “It was a joyful experience for us. We were integrated into (Amendola).”

When World War II ended in 1945, Palmeri was 9. She and her family boarded a boat from Naples, Italy, to the United States in 1952, and she remembers her first sighting of her new home.

“When I saw the Statue of Liberty,” she said, “I’ll never forget how moving it was. How special.”

Palmeri currently resides in Wellsley, Mass., with her husband, Saro, and speaks throughout the country about how her experiences as a Holocaust survivor.

Her recent talk to seventh- and eight-graders at Holy Rosary coincided with a unit on the Holocaust, said Bonnie Ambrose, language arts teacher.

Palmeri’s visit was coordinated through Cypress, a local organization that utilizes educational materials and guest speakers to help promote respect and understanding of others. She also visited the Evansville area speaking to groups in 2010.

To this day, she said, she still pauses when she is introduced to someone from Germany. 

“I have to listen to my brain instead of my gut,” she said, explaining that once she talks to the person and gets to know them any trepidation goes away. “The truth is, in some ways we stay little kids forever.”

When asked about the current immigration debate in the United States, she responded: “I cannot understand why people in this country don’t acknowledge…we are all immigrants,” she said. “It is important to be accepted somewhere.”