Thursday, Feb. 9 at 11:00 AM CST via Zoom

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Silvia Foti, the author of the memoir "Storm in the Land of Rain: A Mother’s Dying Wish Becomes Her Daughter’s Nightmare", is an award-winning investigative journalist in Chicago and a high school literature teacher. Silvia made a deathbed promise to her mother to write a book about her famous WWII hero grandfather, Jonas Noreika, twenty-two years ago. Silvia’s grandmother begged her not to write about her husband. “Just let history lie,” she whispered. Silvia had no idea that in keeping her promise to her mother, her discoveries would bring her to a personal crisis, challenge her Catholic faith, unearth Holocaust denial, and expose an official cover-up by the Lithuanian government. Her goal in writing this story of her grandfather, known as General Storm in Lithuania, is to upend Lithuania’s narrative that Lithuanians had nothing to do with killing Jews, that it was all done by German Nazis.

Speaker Bio: Silvia Foti, MSJ, MAT, MFA, is a journalist, creative writer, teacher, and mother. Silvia holds Masters' degrees in Journalism, Education, and Creative Nonfiction, has been a journalist for twenty years, has published two mystery novels, and has been a high school English teacher since 2007.

Sponsored by a generous grant from the Oakton Educational Foundation and presented by Jewish Studies.