Up From the Ashes - An Evening with Sharon Cameron and Tagan Engel
October 14, 2026 @ 6:00PM — 7:30PM Eastern Time (US & Canada) Add to Calendar
New Haven Free Public Library: 133 Elm Street New Haven, CT 06510 Get Directions
.jpg)
An Evening with Sharon Cameron, author of Up From the Ashes, and Tagan Engel, granddaughter of Chaim and Selma Engel, about whom the book is written
In 1943, a Polish young man and a Dutch girl were forced to dance together for the amusement of their Nazi guards. Together, they rose up against their captors and participated in the infamous uprising of the Sobibor death camp in 1944. Together, they escaped, hiding for nine months until liberation. In 1957, they arrived in Connecticut and made it their home. Together, Chaim and Selma Engel survived what should have been unsurviveable. They found hope where there was no hope, and on the back of trauma, they built a beautiful life. Their story is now told in a new novel, UP FROM THE ASHES.
Please join author Sharon Cameron, Tagan Engel, and other members of the Engel family for a unique and powerful conversation on the life of late Connecticut residents Chaim and Selma Engel, who spent fifteen years speaking in schools along the Connecticut shoreline about their remarkable rebellion and escape. Chaim and Selma’s story is not only an important memory within the devastating history of the Holocaust, but a needed story of our now.
Books will be on sale at the event through Possible Futures Bookstore