Zhanna Arshanskaya Dawson

Holocaust survivor

Zhanna Arshanskaya Dawson used her piano skills to survive the horrors of World War II. At age 14, she and her family were rounded up by German forces where they lived in the Ukraine. As they were being marched off on the way to be executed, her father bribed a Ukrainian guard to look the other way while his two daughters ran into the forest. At the end of the war, she moved to the US to make life anew. She fell in love, attended Julliard, and began performing and teaching music at Indiana University in Bloomington. She now lives in Atlanta. Her son, Greg, has written the book about her ordeal titled *Hiding in the Spotlight*.