JANUARY 19 • 2023 | 21

TOP TO BOTTOM: Doug Harvey and Sophie 
Klisman at an FIDF event in 2019. Lori’s 
husband Jeff, Lori, Sophie, her son, Mark, 
and his wife, Anne, celebrate Sophie’s 90th 
birthday.

it, and one of her best friends died 
and never spoke about it, she felt 
an obligation to finally open up and 
share her story.” 
After the 2016 Poland trip, Klisman 
returned in 2019 to be a survivor 
speaker for FIDF’s mission to Poland 
and Israel.
Coverage of that trip in the Detroit 
News gained the attention of Doug 
Harvey of Sterling Heights, a U.S. 
Army veteran who was part of 
the 84th Infantry Division, which 
liberated Salzwedel concentration 
camp, where Sophie was, in April 
1945.
Klisman and Harvey reunited, 
and ever since they 
periodically get 
together to tell their 
story. They’ll be 
reuniting once again 
on International 
Holocaust 
Remembrance Day.
“Doug is 98 and 
still remarkable — 
he drives; he’s still 
cognitively very 
alert. Same with 
my mother at 93. 
When there’s an 
opportunity that comes up 
and they can do it together, it’s just 
amazing,” Ellis said. 
Klisman and her older sister, 
Felicia, were the only two members 
of their entire family to survive the 
Holocaust. 
“My mom and her sister survived 
three concentration camps together 
[Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen 
at the same time as Anne Frank and 
Salzwedel],” Ellis said. “She says it 
was like a miracle because there were 
so many near-death experiences and 
illnesses.” 
Ellis is in the training process right 
now at The HC of becoming a “next-
generation speaker,” as many of the 
survivors are, unfortunately, passing 
away or are no longer able to speak. 
“I want to keep my parent’s legacy 
alive, so I will speak at the Zekelman 

Holocaust Center as soon as my 
training is complete,” Ellis said. “I feel 
like it’s something I’m destined to do. 
I’m named after my grandmother. 
I want to keep educating the world 
— just like my mom does — to 
hopefully prevent more genocide and 
hatred.” 
Ellis is a retired educator/speech 
and language pathologist and now 
an author. She has written books 
about the Holocaust, diversity and 
acceptance, friendship, kindness, 
inclusivity and more. 
Ellis will be distributing copies 
of the book she wrote about her 
mother’s life (4,456 Miles: A Survivor’s 
Search for Closure) to 
interested congregants 
at the church for free. 
Ellis is always looking 
for donors who would 
want to contribute to 
purchasing books, and 
in return she advertises 
their business by placing 
a sticker on the front 
page of the book that 
states the book was 
generously donated by 
them with their address 
and phone number. 
“It helps to bring in 
business to companies, and they help 
to educate others,” Ellis said. 
Ellis is also in the process of 
getting her mother’s book into school 
districts because a lot of the high 
schools have mandatory genocide 
training in their history curriculum. 
So far, the International Academy in 
Bloomfield Hills and Royal Oak High 
School have the books, and she’s 
waiting to hear back from some other 
local school districts. 
“I just want to get it out there 
for people to know that it’s part of 
history, and these are local people 
who have survived,” Ellis said. “That’s 
my mission right now.” 

You can contact Lori Ellis at silkspeech@aol.com. If 

you want to donate, buy books and/or learn more, 

visit www.loriklismanellis.com.