With great sadness, we write to inform you of the death on Shabbat morning, March 23, of Thea Aschkenase, wife of the late Efraim Aschkenase (z"l) and beloved mother of Steven (Jill) and Lea (Tom Popkewitz) Aschkenase.

The funeral will be on Sunday morning, March 31 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Shiva will be private.

In 2015, at the age of 92, Thea published Remembering: A Holocaust Survivor Shares Her Life. The book is her heartfelt account of surviving the death camps and making loving contributions to her family, her community and her new country. In the book, Thea chronicles her happy childhood days in Munich, her teenage years in Italy hiding from the Nazis, her internment at Auschwitz, her voyage to find a home in Israel and her coming to the USA to raise her family, eventually becoming a proud US citizen. Proceeds from book sales support a program Thea established in Worcester, Mass., that provides food in schools for hungry children. In Thea's honor, her daughter, Lea, established a similar program here in Madison, the Food For Thought Initiative (www.food4ti.org).

May Thea's memory be for a blessing.