The JCC in Sherman welcomes author Julie Canepa for our Sunday Speaker Series event on Sunday October 6th at 1pm for an in-depth discussion about her novel  THE MISSING STAR, based on the lives of Vladimir and Kitty Monk.

Julie Canepa is the co-author of the Regional Emmy® Award winning documentary Return to Auschwitz: The Survival of Vladimir Munk. The documentary was filmed in 2020 when Julie accompanied Czech Holocaust survivor Vladimir Munk to the 75 th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in Oświęcim, Poland.

The film had its premiere in front of a full house at The Strand Center for the Arts in Plattsburgh, NY in the fall of 2021. Vladimir Munk was in attendance and received a five-minute standing ovation. The film was broadcast on Mountain Lake PBS in January of 2021 to their vast viewership in New York, Vermont, Quebec, and Ontario. The film was picked up for broadcast by over 300 PBS stations nationwide. Julie wrote Vladimir’s Story, which chronicled Munk’s life from birth to his liberation from the Nazis, for The Sun Community News. It ran in a series of seven installments that were anxiously anticipated by the publication’s readership. Julie’s work has appeared in numerous publications including Adirondack Life, LOCALAdk, Northern HG&L, Strictly Business, the Lake Champlain Weekly, and her website, Small Town Girl Productions.

The novel, The Missing Star, is based on the life of Vladimir Munk and Kitty Löwi. The book chronicles Vladimir and Kitty’s lives as children growing up under German occupation, and their deportation to the Terezin ghetto, where they met and fell in love. When Vladimir is sent to Auschwitz, and Kitty remains behind in Terezin, they promise to meet after the war in a less complicated world.

Julie is a Culinary Institute of America-trained pastry chef, having owned and operated several bakeries in New York’s Hudson Valley. For many years, she was the lead singer in the regional band Oh!Betty. Julie currently resides in the Adirondacks with her family.