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October 22, 2004/Cheshvan 7 5765, Vol. 57, No. 8
Beyond museum walls
JENNIFER GOLDBERG
Staff Writer
A traveling exhibit currently on display at the Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus allows visitors an inside look at the programs and exhibits offered by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
"Silent Witnesses: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum," presented by Northern Trust Bank, the Jewish Community Foundation and the Washington, D.C. museum, will be at the campus through Sunday, Oct. 24.
Its arrival was commemorated Oct. 18 with an invitation-only lecture by Scott Miller, director of the museum's survivor registry, and Suzy Snyder, associate curator of the museum.
The exhibit comprises a series of illustrated panels that depict events, programs and collections of the museum. Visitors can see a photo of founding director Jeshajahu Weinberg with the Dalai Lama on the museum's opening day; learn about the Museum Teaching Fellows Program, where educators study about the Holocaust in order to teach it; and read quotes from people whose lives have been touched by the museum.
One quote on display from a Holocaust survivor and museum volunteer reads, "We survivors have no cemeteries to go cry in, no gravesites for those we lost. Instead, we have this museum. This is it for me. This is their resting place, where my family and I can honor them and keep their memories alive so they will not have died in vain. This museum will be here forever. We are leaving our memories in good hands."
Christine Brown, the museum's manager of development programs, says the exhibit came about when Northern Trust "approached us and very generously offered to take us around the country to bring our lessons beyond the walls of Washington, D.C."
Museum members and supporters, Jewish Community Foundation members and guests of Northern Trust attended the Oct. 18 program, which featured slides of museum artifacts and a discussion about the value of artifacts as "silent witnesses" to the Holocaust.
The crowd sat silent and attentive as Miller spoke at length about items from the St. Louis, a ship that carried German refugees toward the United States in 1939. After being denied landing privileges, the ship returned to Europe. England, France, Belgium and the Netherlands agreed to take in the refugees.
According to Miller, for decades very little was known about the fate of the St. Louis refugees. The crowd gasped when he revealed that museum researchers have tracked all but one of the ship's 937 passengers.
Snyder showed and explained slides of other artifacts, including a model of a Polish ghetto, a dress worn by a Jewish child taken in by a non-Jewish family, and an artist's representation of life (and death) at a concentration camp.
The audience was invited to the front of the room to see several real-life St. Louis artifacts, brought from the museum's collections.
Neil Hiller, JCF chairman, was impressed with "the devotion of these people to finding everybody and trying to understand what happened to people."
Terri Swirnoff, assistant executive director/campaign director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, called the program "riveting." She said, "I have always been interested in the survivors' stories and I thought the presentation was so remarkable to hear new stories and the important work that the Holocaust museum does."
Julie Hock, the museum's Southwest regional director, says future events in the Valley include a February 2005 lecture with Professor John Roth, the museum's Ina Levine Scholar, and a March 2006 three-day "Teacher Forum on Holocaust Education."
The Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus is located at 12701 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale. Call 480-699-1717.
Contact the writer here
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