“I want my stone to have my tattoo number, A17923. They tried to turn me into a number but I won’t go away quietly and die.” 

Ed Martinez, read that excerpt aloud  from the book “If You Save One Life: A Survivor’s Memoir” to a crowded room in the Distance Education classroom today, one of the many tributes to Holocaust survivor Eva Brown, who passed away in August. 

“You have  a treasure in your hand, her book, read it,” President Thomas Fallo said. 

Fallo started off the tribute to Eva Brown by recounting her commencement speech to the graduating class of 2006. He said students and faculty recommend Eva Brown and that the college was just stunned by Brown’s speech. 

“I have never heard Murdoch Field be so quiet, you could hear a pin drop,” Fallo said. 

Following Fallo, Ed Martinez gave a Powerpoint presentation about the life of Eva Brown, from life pre-World War II through the holocaust and to her death. It was a touching tribute to a woman who went from prisoner to educator about the Holocaust which included talking to director Steven Spielberg in the early ’90s as he prepared to make his Academy Award winning classic “Schindler’s List.” 

“Eva (Brown) started participating in interviews, she became the educator, Eva the educator,” Martinez said. 

Brown, Martinez said has taught more than 1000 different classes and given numerous speeches. Toward the end they played a video of her commencement speech where she gave the graduating class many life lessons. 

“My stories are about randomness, how we are placed in life and how we are found,” Brown  said in the video. 

When the ceremony came to an end, Martinez made sure we knew why of all days, March 1 was the day to remember her. 

“We were trying to find a good day and we thought there is no day better to remember her than the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corp, cause she about peace,” Martinez said.