Irene butter is a holocaust survivor, and professor emeritus in the school of public health at the University of Michigan. She is a founder of the Raoul Wallenberg awards and lecture series, and is the author of acclaimed novel Shores beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope my True Story. She has received the highest non-military award given by the government of Germany, the Anne Frank award, and was recently knighted by the government of Holland. As a German Jew born in 1930 she was witness to the horrors of nazism, totalitarianism and the Jewish holocaust and was one of the last people to see Anne Frank alive. She continues to teach, work with the Raoul Wahlberg series, and bear witness to middle school and high school classes.