when did the holocaust museum in washington dc open
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The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history. It is dedicated to helping leaders and citizens of the world confront hatred, prevent genocide, promote human dignity, and strengthen democracy. In 2008, the museum had an operating budget of $120.6 million. a staff of about 400 employees, 125 contractors, 650 volunteers, 91 Holocaust survivors, and 175,000 members. It had local offices in New York City, Boston, Boca Raton, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Dallas. Since its dedication on April 22, 1993, the museum has had nearly 40 million visitors, including more than 10 million school children, 99 heads of state, and more than 3,500 foreign officials from over 211 countries and territories. The museum's visitors came from all over the world, and less than 10 percent are Jewish. In 2008, its website had 25 million visits, from an average of 100 countries daily. Thirty-five percent of these visits were from outside the United States. The USHMM's collections contain more than 12,750 artifacts, 49 million pages of archival documents, 85,000 historical photographs, a list of over 200,000 registered survivors and their families, 1,000 hours of archival footage, 93,000 library items, and 9,000 oral history testimonies. It also has teacher fellows in every state in the United States and, since 1994, almost 400 university fellows from 26 countries. Researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have documented 42,500 ghettos and concentration camps created by the Nazis throughout German-controlled areas of Europe from 1933 to 1945. The museum is located geographically in the same cluster as the Smithsonian museums. History On November 1, 1978, President Jimmy Carter established the President's Commission on the Holocaust, chaired by Elie Wiesel, a prominent author, activist, and Holocaust survivor. Its mandate was to investigate the creation and maintenance of a memorial to victims of the Holocaust and an appropriate annual commemoration to them. The mandate was a joint effort of Wiesel and Richard Krieger (the original papers are on display at the Jimmy Carter Museum). On September 27, 1979, the Commission presented its report to the President, recommending the establishment of a national Holocaust memorial museum in Washington, D.C., with three main components: a national museum/memorial, an educational foundation, and a Committee on Conscience. After a unanimous vote by the United States Congress in 1980 to establish the museum, the federal government made available of land adjacent to the Washington Monument for construction. Under the founding director Richard Krieger, and subsequent director Jeshajahu Weinberg and chairman Miles Lerman, nearly $190 million was raised from private sources for building design, artifact acquisition, and exhibition creation. In October 1988, President Ronald Reagan helped lay the cornerstone of the building, designed by architect James Ingo Freed. Dedication ceremonies on April 22, 1993, included speeches by American President Bill Clinton, Israeli President Chaim Herzog, Chairman Harvey Meyerhoff, and Elie Wiesel. On April 26, 1993,
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
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Miriam Mörsel Nathan is an American visual artist. Her work is abstract and process based. Through the mediums of drawing and printing, the use of repetition and a combination of materials, she seeks to connect disparate elements and fragments in her works on paper. The driving force behind the work is to make whole what is not whole at all. She is also a published poet. Early life and education Mörsel Nathan was born in 1947 in the Dominican Republic to Czech parents. In the late 1940s, they immigrated to Richmond, Virginia, where Mörsel Nathan spent her childhood. She received a Bachelor of Arts (1969) and a Master of Arts (1971) from The George Washington University. She attended the Corcoran College of Art & Design; New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting & Sculpture; and Fundación CIEC, Centro Internacional de la Estampa Contemporánea, Betanzos, La Coruña, Spain. Career Mörsel Nathan has had multiple solo exhibitions including I First Saw the World Through a Mosquito Net… [2] at the BBLA Gallery, Bohemian National Hall, in New York City (2014) and Memory of a time I did not know… [3] at the Ann Loeb Bronfman Gallery in Washington, D.C. (2010). She has been in numerous group shows in galleries including DC Arts Center (DCAC) in Washington, DC and Betty Mae Kramer Gallery, in Maryland. Her commissioned work was exhibited for the concert performance of the opera Lost Childhood [4] at the Music Center at Strathmore, North Bethesda, Maryland (2013). Mörsel Nathan’s work was the cover image for Into the Cyclorama, the collection of poems by Annie Kim, winner of the 2015 Michael Waters Poetry Prize. Her work was the cover art for the Conductor’s score for the opera Lost Childhood. Her poetry and essays have appeared in such publications as Gargoyle, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Sojourner: The Women’s Forum; Arts & Letters: Journal of Contemporary Culture, The Bitter Oleander, Poet Lore and Daughters of Absence (Capital Books, 2000). She has read her work at The Knitting Factory, The Jewish Museum, NY, the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, among other venues. Co-founder of The Washington Jewish Film Festival with Aviva Kempner, Mörsel Nathan was director of the Festival for ten years and Director of the Morris Cafritz Center for the Arts for fifteen years. Fellowships, awards and commissions 2015 Visual Arts RoundUp Award, Montgomery County Arts & Humanities Council 2015, 2013, 2008, 2006, 2005 Fellowships in Painting, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts 2013, Cover art for Generation After, Inc. brochure 2010 Individual Artist Grant, Montgomery County Arts & Humanities Council 2009 Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation Award in the Visual Arts, Virginia Center for Creative Arts 2007 Commission to create images for score cover and posters for the opera Lost Childhood, by composer Janice Hamer with libretto by poet Mary Azrael 2001, 2002 Fellowships in Poetry, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Personal life Nathan lives outside Washington DC with her husband. External links 1947 births Living people American printmakers American
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Harvey Morton Meyerhoff (April 6, 1927 – August 6, 2023) was an American businessman, fundraiser, and philanthropist. He was a chairman of the trustees of Johns Hopkins Hospital and the founding chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Early life Meyerhoff was born on April 6, 1927, in Baltimore, Maryland. His father was building contractor Joseph Meyerhoff, who had immigrated to Baltimore from Russia in 1906; he is the namesake of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's building, Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. Meyerhoff graduated from Forest Park Senior High School in 1945, then earned his college degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1948. Career Meyerhoff served in the U.S. Navy for three years during and after World War II. After returning home, he joined Monumental Properties, the family home building business. Meyerhoff later became president of Magna Properties. U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum On September 12, 1986, President Ronald Reagan appointed Meyerhoff to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, charged with designing and building the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The next year, he was appointed the commission's chair, serving until 1993. The prior chairman was Elie Wiesel, but there were concerns as to whether he could raise the necessary funds, then design and supervise construction of the building. Meyerhoff successfully oversaw the museum's construction and raised the $150 million in private funds needed to build the museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Meyerhoff personally donated $6 million of his own money. The museum opened on-time and on-budget in 1993. The names of Meyerhoff, Wiesel, and President Bill Clinton are carved into the museum's cornerstone. Personal life Meyerhoff married Lyn Pancoe in 1948. They had four children and ten grandchildren. Meyerhoff owned a yacht named The Moose and collected glassware from Steuben Glass Works. He was also a minority owner of the Baltimore Orioles. Meyerhoff died at his home in Baltimore County, Maryland, on August 6, 2023. Philanthropy Meyerhoff helped to found the National Aquarium in Baltimore (the largest tourism attraction in the state of Maryland). He and his wife were benefactors of 70 Faces Media. In the 1980s, Meyerhoff was the vice chairman of Johns Hopkins Hospital and was a chairman emeritus of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. Meyerhoff also helped fund the at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Meyerhoff served on the advisory board of the U.S. English Foundation, an organization that advocated for making English the official language of the United States. References 1927 births 2023 deaths American construction businesspeople American real estate businesspeople Businesspeople from Baltimore English-only movement Maryland lawyers 20th-century American philanthropists University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni American people of Russian-Jewish descent
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Life Miriam Beerman (November 15, 1923 – February 2022) was an American abstract expressionist painter and printmaker. She was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 15, 1923, and died in February 2022, at the age of 98. Education Miriam Beerman earned her BFA from the Rhode Island School for Design, where she studied painting under John Frazier. After earning her degree, she studied with various established artists including Yasuo Kuniyoshi at the Art Students League in NYC, Adja Yunkers at the New School for Social Research in New York City, and Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17 in Paris, France. Career Beerman maintained the gestural brushstrokes of abstract expressionism and often centered her pieces on human or animal forms. Her work includes automatic gestures, vivid colors, and stippled textures. In an artist's statement, she explained that her work is a response to her perception of a sense of brutality, devastation, and chaos in the world around her. She drew specific inspiration from biblical plagues, The Holocaust, and the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She was the first woman to ever have a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum and has since had 31 solo exhibitions of her work. Her work has been exhibited globally, including at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, NY, the Montclair Art Museum in Montclair, New Jersey, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. In 2000, Beerman was an Artist's Book Resident at the Women's Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York. During her residency, Beerman published Faces, a limited-edition portfolio of eight drypoint prints with text from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke. Miriam Beerman: Expressing the Chaos (2015) is a documentary film directed by Jonathan Gruber, which explores her artwork. The film was shown on PBS and on Dutch and New Zealand T.V. After she died in 2022, the retrospective exhibition, Miriam Beerman: 1923–2022 Nothing has changed, was held at the Rechnitz Hall DiMattio Gallery in West Long Branch and included twenty large-scale paintings by the late artist. Beerman's work is included in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, the National Portrait Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Phillips Collection, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Whitney, along with dozens of other museums. Awards Beerman received numerous grants and awards throughout her career. These include a CAPS grant from New York State Council on the Arts (1971), the Childe Hassam Purchase Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1977), the Camargo Foundation Award (1980), a distinguished artist grant from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts (1987), and a 40-year retrospective of her work, held at the State Museum of New Jersey in Trenton (1991). Beerman received awards and honors from the Pollock Krasner and Joan Mitchell foundations, among others. She
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Micah H. Naftalin (1933 - December 23, 2009) was an American advocate for the rights of Soviet Jews. He was national director of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews from February 1987 until his death. Naftalin held a BA from Brandeis University (1955) and a JD from George Washington University Law School (1960). He served in Korea as an enlisted man in the U.S. Army from 1955 to 1957. Before joining UCSJ, he served as an aide to U.S. Congressman Carl Elliott, as chief counsel and deputy director of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Select Committee on Government Research and as a senior policy analyst with the National Academy of Sciences. In 1982, he joined chairman Elie Wiesel on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, which led the efforts to establish the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Naftalin was appointed deputy director and, later, acting director. Naftalin died in Washington, DC. References External links "UCSJ mourns the death of its national director" [press release] (December 23, 2009). UCSJ. Archive of the Jewish Aliya Movement in the USSR Records of Union of Councils for Soviet Jews at the American Jewish Historical Society at the Center for Jewish History. 1933 births 2009 deaths United States Army soldiers Brandeis University alumni George Washington University Law School alumni American human rights activists Minority rights activists
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George S. Sexton, III is an American designer, specializing in the areas of lighting design, museum design and museum planning services. Life Sexton studied at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University from 1966, where he received his Bachelor of Architecture Degree in 1971. Upon graduation, Sexton began his work in architectural lighting design through his employment at Claude Engle, Lighting Consultant in Washington, DC. He continued his work in the field of lighting design by taking a position at the National Gallery of Art both designing and lighting exhibits. This early professional experience working in DC museums coupled with his modernist training as an architect have been the foundations of his approach to lighting and museum design. Further shaping experiences include working as Acting Keeper of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich, England, as well as the Head of the Design and Installation Department for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco at both the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. In 1980, Sexton opened his own lighting and museum design firm, George Sexton Associates, based in Washington, DC, with satellite offices in Norwich, England and New York City. Connection to Claude Engle Trained in architecture at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, George Sexton found himself - after graduation, amid a recession in the early 1970s — seeking employment beyond architecture firms and found a position with lighting designer Claude Engle. Assigned to the east wing extension for the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which Engle was working on at the time, was what set Sexton on a course of museum work that has been the cornerstone of his professional lighting career. Lighting philosophy As referenced in an interview of George Sexton, "Design-wise, it's about listening to the client. In terms of lighting, we are of the school that you shouldn't notice our work; it should be transparent. ... Daylight is very important to the visitor's experience. Architects and lighting designers have a great comfort level in working with daylight. It is something that can be managed in a way that is consistent with museums, but when making that choice, there is a cost of controlling daylight that needs to be considered. ... Regarding technology impacting museum lighting, there's a whole area of lighting controls, particularly as they relate to conservation and energy issues. Interactive media as well. We need to be clever as designers and consider these other sources (i.e., the whole range of media generated light) as part of the lighting solution." Projects of note Sexton has provided design services for an array of international and domestic clients, including the following: Museums and galleries Museum of Modern Art, New York City Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Morse Museum of American Art, Winter Park Florida Star-Spangled Banner Exhibit, National Museum of American History Washington DC Victoria & Albert Museum, London UK Peabody Essex Museum, Salem Massachusetts Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of
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The Virginia Holocaust Museum (VHM) is a public history museum located in Richmond, Virginia, United States. The museum is dedicated to depicting the Holocaust through the personal stories of its victims. History The VHM first opened in 1997, founded by Mark Fetter, Devorah Ben David, Jay Ipson, and Al Rosenbaum. Housed in the former Education building at Temple Beth El, the museum became an attraction for school field trips. Within a few years, the museum outgrew the space at Temple Beth El, and required additional space to handle the growing number of visitors and school groups. The Virginia General Assembly offered the American Tobacco Company Warehouse for the relocation of the museum. After restoration and reconfiguration of the building, the expanded Virginia Holocaust Museum was dedicated on Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust Day of Remembrance, 2003. The Virginia Holocaust Museum has grown steadily since 2003, and now has an average of over 42,000 visitors each year. The VHM remains an important location for Virginia field trips, with students from over 100 middle and high schools visiting yearly. The museum began an extensive ongoing exhibition renovation project in 2015. Much of the permanent exhibition had never been updated since opening in 2003, and the renovations serve to both update the information contained with newly uncovered facts and figures, as well as update the core exhibition space to modern standards. The VHM hopes these renovations will be completed by 2020. Mission Founded to educate the community about the tragedies of the Holocaust, the Virginia Holocaust Museum memorializes and archives the atrocities of World War II. Through exhibits, programming, and outreach, the Museum uses the history of genocide to teach the dangers of prejudice and indifference. Exhibits Core exhibition Located on the first floor of the museum, the core exhibits narrate the history of the Holocaust. As visitors progress through these exhibits—and chronologically through the events of the Holocaust—they are presented with a glimpse into the systematic destruction of European Jewry. 300 artifacts and the testimonies of local Holocaust survivors expand upon this history, representing the tangible and personal realities of this event. German Güterwagen In 2004, the VHM acquired an authentic "goods wagon," or freight car, used during the Third Reich. Alexander Lebenstein, a local Holocaust survivor, worked with the museum to bring this important artifact to Richmond. Visitors have the opportunity to enter the artifact and imagine the conditions experienced by the people transported in this type of rail car. Ipson Saga At the center of the VHM's core exhibits is the story of a single family, the Ipsons. The Ipson Saga exhibition shares the experience of a family of local Holocaust survivors whose confinement in the Kovno Ghetto and harried escape to a farm in the Lithuanian countryside highlight the constant dangers Jews faced during the Holocaust. Nuremberg Courtroom The Nuremberg Trials were the first international trials of major Nazi war criminals. As such, they served as a major source of documents and testimony for early Holocaust scholarship. The Nuremberg Courtroom
Virginia Holocaust Museum
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At approximately 12:50 p.m. on June 10, 2009, 88-year-old James Wenneker von Brunn entered the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., with a slide-action rifle and fatally shot Museum Special Police Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns. Other special police officers returned fire, wounding von Brunn, who was apprehended. Von Brunn was charged in federal court on June 11, 2009, with first-degree murder and firearms violations. On July 29, 2009, von Brunn was indicted by a federal grand jury on seven counts. Included in the indictment were three hate crime charges, as well as four charges which made him eligible for the death penalty. In September 2009, a judge ordered von Brunn to undergo a competency evaluation to determine whether or not he could stand trial. On January 6, 2010, von Brunn died of natural causes while awaiting trial. Von Brunn was a white supremacist, Holocaust denier, and neo-Nazi. He had previously been convicted of entering the Federal Reserve Building with various weapons in 1981 and attempting to place the members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, who he considered to be treasonous, under citizen's arrest. Background The Holocaust Museum has previously been a target of white supremacist terrorism since its establishment in 1993. In 2002, two white supremacists plotted to attack the museum using a fertilizer bomb, though their plan was foiled after their arrest. Shooting At about 12:49 p.m., 88-year-old James von Brunn drove his car to the 14th Street entrance of the museum. Von Brunn entered the museum when Museum Special Police Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns opened the door for him. Authorities said he raised a Winchester Model 1906 .22-caliber rifle and shot Special Police Officer Johns once in the upper torso; Johns later died of his injuries at the George Washington University Hospital. Two other Special Police Officers stationed with Officer Johns, Harry Weeks and Jason "Mac" McCuiston, then exchanged fire with von Brunn, wounding him with a shot to the face. According to police officers at the scene, a third person was injured by broken glass but refused treatment at the hospital. In total, 11 shots were fired during the incident (three from von Brunn and eight from Weeks and McCuiston). Immediate aftermath The Washington Post reported that "if it weren't for the quick response of the private guards on duty, more people could have been killed or wounded." Mayor Adrian Fenty stated that the officers' efforts "to bring this gunman down so quickly ... saved the lives of countless people... This could have been much, much worse." Inside, the museum was crowded with visiting schoolchildren. Museum officials said that "the entire incident unfolded in approximately two minutes." After the shooting, the nearby U.S. Department of Agriculture Administration Building, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and the USDA's Sidney R. Yates Federal Building were closed. Portions of 14th Street and Independence Avenue in the Southwest quadrant were closed until later in the night. The car driven by von Brunn was found double-parked in front of
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The Oregon Holocaust Memorial is an outdoor memorial dedicated to victims of the Holocaust. Located in Portland, Oregon's Washington Park, the memorial was dedicated on August 29, 2004. Owned by the American Jewish Committee and constructed by Atlas Landscape Architecture and the Walsh Construction Company, the idea for a memorial was proposed in 1994 by Alice Kern and a local group of Holocaust survivors that met through the Oregon Holocaust Resource Center. According to Fodor's, the memorial is open daily from dawn to dusk and admission is free of charge. Design The memorial features a stone bench with wrought iron gating around a cobblestone circle. Scattered bronzes of common objects such as shoes, glasses, and a suitcase represent items left behind by those persecuted during the Holocaust. A cobblestone walkway, with granite bars simulating railroad tracks, leads to a wall containing a history of the Holocaust as well as quotes from survivors. The memorial also contains a "soil vault panel", which covers soil and ash from six extermination camps of the Holocaust (Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bełżec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Treblinka, and Sobibor) brought back by local residents. Engraved on the back of the wall are the names of people who died in the camps, as well as the names of their surviving relatives in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Author and designer John Laursen created the lettering for the memorial. Other design team members included artists Tad Savinar and Paul Sutinen, landscape architects John Warner, Marianne Zarkin and Marlene Salon, and historian Marshall Lee. Construction The total estimated cost of construction was $800,000, funded by grants and private donations. The primary contractor for the project was Oregon's Walsh Construction Company. Minnesota-based Coldspring Granite Company provided granite for the memorial. History The memorial was vandalized in 2021. See also 2004 in art List of Holocaust memorials and museums Oregon Korean War Memorial References External links Oregon Holocaust Resource Center Driving Directions to the Oregon Holocaust Memorial (PDF) Oregon Holocaust Memorial: 5th Anniversary Announcement (PDF) 2004 establishments in Oregon 2004 sculptures Bronze sculptures in Oregon Holocaust memorials in the United States Jews and Judaism in Portland, Oregon Monuments and memorials in Portland, Oregon Outdoor sculptures in Portland, Oregon Tourist attractions in Portland, Oregon Washington Park (Portland, Oregon) Vandalized works of art in Oregon
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The Fraser Gallery were two Washington, DC (1996-2011) and Bethesda, Maryland (2002-2011) art galleries founded by Catriona Fraser, an ex-pat British photographer and art dealer. She has lived in Washington, DC since 1996. History Fraser opened The Fraser Gallery in 1996 in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC. In 2002 she opened a second gallery in Bethesda, a Maryland suburb of the Greater Washington, DC area. Fraser was also the founder of Secondsight, an organization of women photographers. The galleries closed in 2011. The Fraser Gallery represented several significant artists during its operating years, including Tim Tate, David FeBland, Kris Kuksi, Chawky Frenn, Joyce Tenneson, Lida Moser, F. Lennox Campello, Michael Janis, Dianora Niccolini, Maxwell MacKenzie, Nestor Hernández, Mark Jenkins, as well as many key contemporary Cuban artists such as Sandra Ramos, Marta María Pérez Bravo, and others. The Washington Post also noted in 2000 that the gallery was able to take advantage of the then emerging Internet to stage art shows which "draws entries from all over the world", and a few years earlier, in 1998, praised the gallery for having "one of the liveliest, best-looking and best-organized sites in town", in a seminal article about art galleries' websites in Washington, DC. Upon the announcement of its closing, The Washington City Paper photography critic wrote that "the gallery mounted significant shows by such photographers as Maxwell MacKenzie and Lida Moser, as well as an annual photography contest." Fraser is now the Chair of the Trawick Art Prize, an art competition for Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC artists which awards $14,000 in prize money. She is also the director of the annual Bethesda Fine Arts Festival. Photographer Fraser's own photographic work has focused overwhelmingly on black and white infrared landscape photographs of Scotland, ranging from traditional landscapes, to ancient Pictish ruins and medieval castles and fortresses. The photographs have been exhibited in museums and galleries in the US and Latin America, and awarded multiple prizes. References External links The Fraser Gallery Video of 2011 Photography Exhibition at Fraser Gallery Art museums and galleries in Washington, D.C. Art museums and galleries established in 1996 1996 establishments in Washington, D.C. Art museums and galleries disestablished in 2011 Art museums and galleries established in 2002 Women art dealers Contemporary art galleries in the United States Art museums and galleries in Maryland
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Judith Leiber (born Judit Pető; January 11, 1921 – April 28, 2018) was a Hungarian-American fashion designer and businesswoman. Life and career Leiber was born Judit Pető in 1921 in Budapest, Hungary, to Helene, a Vienna-born homemaker, and Emil, a commodities broker. She also had one sister named Eva. Leiber was sent to King's College London in 1938 by her family to study chemistry for the cosmetics industry, in part since her father thought she would be safer in London in the case of a war. She returned to Hungary before World War II, where thanks to family connections she obtained a traineeship at a handbag company, where she learned to cut and mold leather, make patterns, frame and stitch bags. She was the first woman graduated to master craftswoman, becoming the first woman to join the Hungarian Handbag Guild in Budapest. She avoided Nazi persecution when she escaped the Holocaust of World War II to the safety of a house set aside for Swiss citizens, when her father, a Hungarian Jew who managed the grain department of a bank, was able to obtain a Swiss schutzpass, a document that gave the bearer safe passage. This pass is on view at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. The flat where Leiber survived the war housed 26 people. In December 1944, those living in the apartment were taken to one of the Hungarian Nazi-run ghettos. After the liberation of Hungary by the Red Army, Leiber's family moved into a basement with 60 other people. In 1946, she married Gerson Leiber (Gus), who was a sergeant in the United States Army serving in Eastern Europe. They met when she was making purses for the secretaries of the American Legation in Budapest, and they moved to New York City in 1947. He was an abstract expressionist painter, member of the National Academy of Design, with some of his works displayed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Museum, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and other institutions. Fashion career After working as a handbag designer for other companies, Leiber founded her own business in 1963. She is known for her crystal minaudières, evening purses made of a metal shell often encrusted with Swarovski crystals, plated with silver or gold and with various forms, such as baby pigs, slices of watermelon, cupcakes, peacocks, penguins, and snakes. Sold at exclusive boutiques around the world, her purses may cost up to several thousand dollars and have become a status symbol for many women, including several Presidential First Ladies to whom she has given them as a present, from Mamie Eisenhower to Barbara Bush and Hillary Clinton. Animals are a recurring theme in her designs, and often ornament the most expensive purses of the collection, with prices on some animal-shaped minaudières exceeding US$7,000. Some wealthy women collect them; Bernice Norman, an arts patron in New Orleans, owns close to 300 of the Leiber bags. In 1992, Leiber received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of
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Elliot Melville Offner (July 12, 1931 – October 15, 2010) was an American sculptor, painter, printmaker and typographer, and longtime professor of art at Smith College. Early life Offner was born in Brooklyn, New York City in 1931, the second of three brothers. His parents Samuel and Helen (Wolowitz) had emigrated from Eastern Europe. He studied at Cooper Union before receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts from Yale University, where he was a protege of Joseph Albers. He joined the faculty at Smith College in 1960 and was appointed Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Humanities in 1974. Offner taught at Smith until his retirement in 2004. Career During his artistic career, Offner was the subject of 27 solo exhibitions, and numerous group exhibitions. His public works include "Loon, Great Blue Heron and Grouse", at the Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, MN; "Child With Dog", Children's Inn, National Institute of Health, Washington, DC; "Monument to the Letter Carriers of America", Milwaukee, WI, "Holocaust Memorial Figure", Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, "Karl Lehmann Memorial Plaque", Archaeological Museum, Samothrace, Greece, among numerous others. His creative output peaked from 1964 until 2007, during which time Mr. Offner won many awards such as the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (1964, 1965); grants from National Institute of Arts and Letters (1965) and National Council on the Arts and Humanities (1966, 1967); a Gold Medal from the National Sculpture Society (1992). In 2003, Offner was named 2003 Master Wildlife Artist and given International Master Wildlife Sculptor Medal and Exhibition, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI. After retiring from Smith College in 2004, he following year he was given an Honorary Doctorate from Converse College in Spartanburg, SC, and was named one of four Kenan Master Sculptors for 2005. In 2007, for the first time in a decade, the National Sculpture Society granted its Medal of Honor to Offner, and featured the artist in its Sculptor Profile. Also in 2007, Brookgreen Gardens in Pawley's Island, SC, opened the Elliot and Rosemary Offner Sculpture Learning & Research Center. Brookgreen Gardens is a National Historic Landmark with the most significant collection of figurative sculpture in an outdoor setting by American artists in the world. Offner served as a Visiting Artist at Brandeis University, Yale University, Royal College of Art, and Cambridge University. Offner also served as president of the National Sculpture Society. Elliot Melville Offner died in 2010 in Northampton, Massachusetts. He was survived by his wife Rosemary O'Connell Offner, daughters Helen and Emily and son Daniel. Rosemary passed a year later, in 2011. External links Elliot Offner collection at the Mortimer Rare Book Collection, Smith College Special Collections Notes 1931 births 2010 deaths Artists from New York City Artists from Brooklyn Smith College faculty Cooper Union alumni Yale University alumni Sculptors from New York (state)
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Ilana Raviv-Oppenheim (born 1945) is a multidisciplinary artist. Her work spans a variety of media including painting, drawing, etching, tapestry, and ceramic sculpture. Biography She was born in Tel Aviv in 1945 to Itzhak and Fanya Oppenheim. The painter Moritz Daniel Oppenheim was her great-great-grand uncle. Ilana grew up in Israel. From 1980 to 1990, she lived with her family in the art capital of the world, New York, in order to study, renew herself, and broaden her artistic vision. During her stay, from 1980 to 1984 she studied at the Art Students League of New York. Among her teachers were Roberto Delamonica, Bruce Dorfman, and the American master Knox Martin. Ilana Raviv has exhibited in various museums and galleries of Israel, the US, Europe, and the Far East. Recently Ilana has exhibited her works alongside the best known of artists, including Knox Martin, Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, Rosenquist, Chuck Close, Marisol Work Influences The great mother figure from Greek mythology is among the chief topics in her work, as are other characters from the Bible, from history, and from literature. Her works are built from a variety of flat designs, contrasts, and shapes, which create different versions and dimensions of reality. Raviv describes her works as "a metaphor which creates and shapes an artificial life on canvas". In 2008 she received the title of Tel Aviv–Jaffa "Woman of the Year", representing the arts. Her work is represented in private collections and in various museums and galleries around the world. A solo exhibition consisting of 50 pictures by Ilana was presented at the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg between October 2007 and January 2008, and another solo exhibition of 100 pictures was presented at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. In both museums, she was the first native Israeli to exhibit. Besides the Russian museum exhibits, there is a Holocaust-themed painting that has figured for many years in the permanent collection of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. In this painting Ilana exposes the monstrous aspect of the topic more than she trains a direct view on its consequences. The painting shows the Ten Commandments consumed by flame, with an emphasis on "Thou shalt not murder." The struggle to survive is expressed only in the mixture of colors. Her painting ''A Tabernacle of Peace – Homage to Zachariah" (acrylic on canvas, 2.12 meters by 10) opened Israel's 40th anniversary celebrations in New York at the world's largest sukkah. Later it was displayed for eight years in the main entrance hall of the Jerusalem International Convention Center. Private life Raviv is married and the mother of three. In the course of her life she has displayed her creations at many exhibits, including a pro bono exhibit to benefit Seeds Of Peace, which aims to connect Arab and Jewish youth. References External links Official Website AskART: Ilana Raviv Ilana Raviv at the Museum of Modern Art, Moscow - link number 1 Ilana Raviv at the Museum of Modern Art, Moscow -
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The Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art (SMMJA) in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was founded in 1966 as the Gershon & Rebecca Fenster Museum of Jewish Art. From its inception until 1998, Tulsa's Congregation B'nai Emunah Synagogue housed the museum. Sherwin Miller was the museum's first curator. In 2000, the museum was renamed the Sherwin Miller Museum, and it moved to its present location at 2021 E 71st St in Tulsa, OK 74136 on the Zarrow Campus of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa in November 2004. The Sherwin Miller Museum, which houses the largest collection of Jewish art in the Southwestern United States, received accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums in 2013. Collections and exhibits The museum is a part of the Fenster/Sanditen Cultural Center along with the National Council of Jewish Women Holocaust Education Center, dedicated in April 1995 on Yom HaShoah by members of the Oklahoma 45th Infantry Division. It is the only American Jewish museum in the region and preserves the largest collection of Judaica in the Southwest United States. It serves as the headquarters of the Jewish Historical Society of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Jewish Archives. The Herman & Kate Kaiser Holocaust Collection focuses on survivors who came to live in Oklahoma and those Oklahomans helped to liberate the Nazi concentration camps. The museum's permanent collection consists of more than 16,000 pieces, including items of archaeological and ritual significance, ethnographic costumes, synagogue textiles, historical documents, and fine art. The museum opened Facility description The museum building contains of exhibit space. It even contains a model synagogue that is used for services twice a week by children from the Mizel Jewish Community Day School, also located on the Zarrow Campus. The building has two levels: The lower level has a permanent Holocaust exhibit that displays documents, photos and other mementos from Oklahoma veterans who liberated German concentration camps, Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, and Holocaust victims and survivors. The upper level exhibits art and artifacts related to the history of the Jewish people, ranging from the pre-Canaanite period in the Middle East to Jewish settlements in Oklahoma. The museum opened its new Holocaust Center in November 2020 after three years of planning and construction. Mikel Yantz, said its purpose is "... to teach about the Holocaust. Why it happened, when it happened, and those who were affected, and how it affects us today," In addition, there are also displays about the Muscogee Creek "Trail of Tears" and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre." Yantz also noted that it is the only museum of its kind in Oklahoma. Vandalism In February 2021, five Holocaust tribute statues which were part of an outdoor display created by the museum to remember children murdered during the Holocaust were destroyed by vandals. Notes See also List of museums in Oklahoma References External links Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art info, photos and videos on TravelOK.com Official travel and tourism website for the State of Oklahoma 1966 establishments in Oklahoma Art museums and galleries established in
Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art
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Yad Vashem, the state of Israel's official Holocaust memorial, has generally been critical of Pope Pius XII, the pope during The Holocaust. For decades, Pius XII has been nominated unsuccessfully for recognition as Righteous Among the Nations, an honor Yad Vashem confers on non-Jews who saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust altruistically and at risk to their own lives. Museum caption Prior to July 2012, Yad Vashem affixed the following caption, in English and Hebrew, to two photographs of Pius XII in its Jerusalem memorial: In 1933, when he was Secretary of the Vatican State, he was active in obtaining a Concordat with the German regime to preserve the Church's rights in Germany, even if this meant recognizing the Nazi racist regime. When he was elected Pope in 1939, he shelved a letter against racism and anti-Semitism that his predecessor had prepared. Even when reports about the murder of Jews reached the Vatican, the Pope did not protest either verbally or in writing. In December 1942, he abstained from signing the Allied declaration condemning the extermination of the Jews. When Jews were deported from Rome to Auschwitz, the Pope did not intervene. The Pope maintained his neutral position throughout the war, with the exception of appeals to the rulers of Hungary and Slovakia towards its end. His silence and the absence of guidelines obliged Churchmen throughout Europe to decide on their own how to react. The caption made reference to the following controversies concerning Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust: His role in the drafting of the Reichskonkordat His failure to promulgate Humani generis unitas, "The Hidden Encyclical" of Pius XI His lack of public protest of the Holocaust His reaction to the Roman razzia The neutrality of Vatican City during World War II In July 2012, the museum "slightly softened its rhetoric" and changed the wording in a way that "incorporates views of those who defend the Pope." An excerpt follows: The Israeli newspaper Haaretz provided some excerpts from the revised language. The new text cites the pope's defenders, who maintain that his "neutrality prevented harsher measures against the Vatican and the Church's institutions throughout Europe, thus enabling a considerable number of secret rescue activities to take place at different levels of the Church." However, "until all relevant material is available to scholars, this topic will remain open to further inquiry," the new text reads. Nominations as Righteous among the Nations Yad Vashem was created by the Knesset in 1953. The nominations process for designation as Righteous among the Nations has been administered by a committee chaired by a justice of the Supreme Court of Israel since 1963. Dr. Arieh Kubovy, an early chairman of the Yad Vashem Memorial authority, was somewhat at odds with Pius XII over his unsuccessful attempts to induce the pope to effect the return of Jewish children baptized during the Holocaust by Catholic institutions. Nominations may only be made by Jews and may not concern the rescue of Jews converted to Catholicism during the
Pope Pius XII and Yad Vashem
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John King Roth is an American-based author, editor, and the Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College (CMC) in Claremont, California. Roth taught at CMC from 1966 through 2006, where he was the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, which is now the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights. Best known for his contributions to Holocaust and genocide studies, he is the author or editor of more than fifty books. In 1988, he was named the U.S. National Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Early life Roth was born in Grand Haven, Michigan, on September 3, 1940. He received his B.A. from Pomona College in 1962, graduating magna cum laude and with honors in philosophy and membership in Phi Beta Kappa. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy at Yale University. Career After graduating from Yale University, Roth joined the faculty at Claremont McKenna College, where he taught philosophy, with an emphasis on Holocaust and genocide studies. In 1985, Roth joined the economist Gordon Bjork and the political scientist Ward Elliott to initiate what has become a signature program at CMC, the tutorial-based philosophy, politics, and economics major. He has also served as a visiting professor of Holocaust studies at the University of Haifa (Israel) and visiting professor of philosophy at Franklin College (Switzerland) and Doshisha University (Japan). Roth was a Fulbright Lecturer in American studies attached to the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Education, Research, and Church Affairs in Oslo, Norway, from 1995 to 1996. He served as the Robert and Carolyn Frederick Distinguished Visiting Professor of Ethics at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana from 2007 to 2008. Roth's expertise in Holocaust and genocide studies, as well as in philosophy, ethics, American studies, and religious studies, has been advanced by postdoctoral appointments as a Graves Fellow in the Humanities, a Fulbright Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and a Fellow of the National Humanities Institute at Yale University. He used a Demonstration Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop two model interdisciplinary courses: “Perspectives on the American Dream” and “The Holocaust.” With Professor Kenji Yoshida of Doshisha University, Roth received the first Faculty Pairing Grant awarded by the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission. In 2001, he held the Koerner Visiting Fellowship for the Study of the Holocaust at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies in England. From 2004 to 2005, Roth was the Ina Levine Invitational Scholar at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Roth was a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council in Washington, D.C., and he served for many years on the church relations committee at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. In 1998, he was chosen to direct the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the museum, but he was criticized by
John K. Roth
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Nesse Godin (Galperin) (28 March 1928 – 5 March 2024) was a Lithuanian and American Holocaust survivor. Godin dedicated her life to informing and teaching others about the Holocaust. Early years Godin was born in Šiauliai, Lithuania on 28 March 1928. 1933–1939 Godin stated that her life before the war was normal, remarking: "My family was very religious and observed all the Jewish laws. I attended Hebrew school and was raised in a loving household where the values of community and caring were always stressed. After the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, we heard from relatives in Łódź that Jews there were being treated horribly. We could not believe it; how could your neighbors denounce you and not stand up to help you?" When asked why she did not pretend to be German, she recognized she could have, but her neighbor revealed her as a Jew. 1945–1950 From Stutthof, Godin was transported to several camps and was sent on a death camp in January 1945. Many prisoners died due to the cold winter weather and inadequate nourishment. On 10 March 1945, she was liberated by Soviet troops. As she was still a young child, she was assigned to a random guardian but soon reunited with her mother. Her mother did not recognize her, as it had been three years, and Godin's hair was shaved to treat lice. In 1950, after five years in a displaced person camp in Feldafing, Germany, Godin and her husband Jack (also a survivor), along with their two children, Pnina and Edward, moved to the United States and settled in Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Later years In 1954 Godin and Jack gave birth to their last child, Rochelle. They supported their children and Godin's mother, Sara, with blue-collar jobs. Godin had seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Jack died on 3 September 2015. Advocacy/Awareness speaking and volunteering For over 40 years, Godin appeared before audiences to speak about the Holocaust to domestic and international audiences. Organizations and groups she spoke with include the United States Naval Academy, United States Military Academy, Department of Defense, Department of Energy, United Nations General Assembly, numerous schools, universities, churches, synagogues, and civic groups. Godin was a founding member and on boards of several Holocaust Survivor groups. She served on the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington board and was a board member of the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington, and other organizations. Godin was co-president of the Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Friends of Greater Washington and served as a speaker for the Capitol Children's Museum of Washington, D.C. Godin earned numerous awards and honors. Regarding why she volunteered, Godin stated: "As you know I was a prisoner from the age of 13 to 17. I lived through a ghetto, a concentration camp, four labor camps, and a death march. I was not strong, I was not smart, and I was a little girl. I think that I survived the Holocaust by the grace of the Lord above and by
Nesse Godin
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The National Irish American Museum Of Washington, D.C. is a proposed museum to honor Ireland’s legacy in America. History The museum was proposed in 2008, but active fundraising was deferred due to the Financial crisis of 2007–08, and in 2015 the Washington Post deemed the museum unlikely to ever open. Objective The museum's objective is "to become a major cultural institution that will bring Irish-American history to life for visitors of all ages, from all ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds." National Irish American Virtual Museum A "Virtual Museum" has been created with a short video and biographical sections on numerous Irish Americans from 1776 to the modern era in the fields of innovation, acting, the arts, leadership, legal, media, medical, military, music, science, technology, and sports. See also Cobh Heritage Centre Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum References External links Official website http://www.irishamericanmuseumdc.org/in-the-press/IA_museum.pdf http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/03/irish-america-museum-obama-reagan-.html http://www.irishemigrant.com/ie/go.asp?p=story&storyID=8586 http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2012/01/north-american-connections.html http://www.meathchronicle.ie/news/meathsouth/articles/2011/03/23/4003904-skryne-man-in-bid-to-build-irishamerican-museum-in-washington/ http://www.hiberniandigest.com/2010/06/08/building-the-irish-american-museum/ http://irishamericanstoryproject.com/?m=201109 http://www.indypressny.org/nycma/voices/469/briefs/briefs_3/ http://www.irishamericannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2314:dc-to-open-irish-american-museum&catid=82:usa&Itemid=199 http://groups.irishabroad.com/group/irishamericanmusemwashingtondc/ http://www.appalachianhistory.net/2011/07/cyrus-mccormick-did-not-invent-the-mechanical-reaper.html/cyrus-hall-mccormick http://www.prlog.org/11342454-national-irish-american-museum-seeks-funding-dc-location-h Ethnic museums in Washington, D.C. Irish-American culture in Washington, D.C. Virtual museums Proposed museums in the United States Irish-American museums
The National Irish American Museum of Washington, D.C.
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The Museum of Jewish Heritage, located in Battery Park City in Manhattan, New York City, is a living memorial to those murdered in the Holocaust. The museum has received more than 2 million visitors since opening in 1997. The mission statement of the museum is "to educate people of all ages and backgrounds about the broad tapestry of Jewish life in the 20th and 21st centuries—before, during, and after the Holocaust." The museum's building includes two wings: a six-sided building with a pyramid-shaped roof designed to evoke the memory of the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, and the Robert M. Morgenthau Wing. The six-sided building, opened in 1997, contains the museum's core exhibition galleries. The Morgenthau Wing, opened in 2003, contains the museum's offices, theater, and classrooms, as well as the Irving Schneider and Family exhibition gallery. Both wings were designed by Roche-Dinkeloo. History The Museum of Jewish Heritage was incorporated and chartered in 1984, dedicated in 1986, and built between 1994 and 1997 in New York City's Battery Park City. The museum's $21.5 million building, designed by architect Kevin Roche opened to the public on September 15, 1997. David Altshuler was the founding director of the museum, a position he held from 1984 until December 1999, when he left to become president of the Trust for Jewish Philanthropy. Between 1946 and the 1960s, government officials lacked interest in building the museum until the American Jewish Community expressed interest and made an intervention for the museum creation; the American Jewish Community's interest was catalyzed by the Six-Day War in 1967. The intervention also contributed to the building process delay. U.S. President Jimmy Carter, with the support of Mayor Ed Koch, proposed placing the national memorial in New York City instead of Washington, D.C., but it was ruled out. Koch's appointment of a Task Force on the Holocaust in 1981 was crucial. The Task Force, "which evolved in 1982 to the New York Holocaust Commission," recommended the creation of a museum. Carter, in 1978, created the President's Commission which placed the issue on the US government's agenda. The agenda remained present until it became a reality in President Bill Clinton's term on 1993. Before the museum became a realization, there were many political events that occurred that slowed down the museum creation. Political events included debates based on the structure, location, and even other priorities such as a funding crisis. One of the co-chairman wanted to "personalize" the museum building. The museum's site, originally proposed to be located within the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, was relocated to Battery Park City in 1986. The funding crisis was when "Black Monday", which occurred on October 19, 1987, "wiped out" funds of potential donors for the museum as well as dropped real estate prices. Initially, Koch's administration and co-chairmen George Klein were going to obtain the Custom House for the museum. In 1985 Governor Mario Cuomo's broker negotiated site change to Battery Park City. Klein and other leaders were enthusiastic about
Museum of Jewish Heritage
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Wendy Lower (born 1965) is an American historian and a widely published author on the Holocaust and World War II. Since 2012, she holds the John K. Roth Chair at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, and in 2014 was named the director of the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at Claremont. As of 2016, she serves as the interim director of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Lower's research areas include the history of Germany and Ukraine in World War II, the Holocaust, women's history, the history of human rights, and comparative genocide studies. Her 2013 book, Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields, was translated into 21 languages and was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Award in the nonfiction category and for the National Jewish Book Award. Lower's The Ravine: A Family, A Photograph, A Holocaust Massacre Revealed (2021) received the National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category and was shortlisted for the Wingate Prize, and longlisted for a PEN. Education and career Lower was born in 1965. She earned a BA from Hamilton College in 1987 and a PhD in European History in 1999 from the American University in Washington, DC. From 2000 to 2004, Lower was the director of the visiting scholars programs at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). She was an assistant professor at Towson University in Maryland from 2004 to 2007. For the next five years she lived in Germany and worked at the Historical Seminar of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich as a research associate while serving as director of oral history research for the USHMM from 2010 to 2012. Lower was an associate professor at the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University for the 2011-2012 academic year. Since 2012, she holds the John K. Roth Chair at Claremont McKenna College in California. In 2014 Lower was named the director of the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at Claremont. As of 2016, she serves as the interim director of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Research on World War II For her research on the history of Germany, Poland, and Ukraine, Lower has received numerous awards and honors. Her work, Nazi Empire Building and the Holocaust in Ukraine, won the 2007 award from Choice, and the Baker-Burton Award of the Southern Historical Association for the best first work in European history. The work traces the history of Ukraine in World War II after that drive to establish German colonies under SS-Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler and the complex role of German bureaucrats, the military, and the local population in the implementation of the Holocaust. Lower considers arrogance, fear, jealousy, and Slavic and Communist as the central declarations for the imperial policy of the Nazis in Eastern Europe. The research in the archives
Wendy Lower
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Mindy Weisel is an American abstract visual artist and author. Early life and education Weisel was born in Bergen-Belsen, Germany. Her parents were survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Weisel began to paint when she was 14 years old. She attended California State University from 1965 to 1974 and the Otis Art Institute in 1971. She obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at George Washington University in 1977 and performed post-graduate studies at the American University. Career Weisel has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in both Germany and the U.S. including a 2013 show at the Kreeger Museum in Washington DC. Her work is permanently displayed at several American museums including the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American Art, Baltimore Museum of Art and the Hirshhorn Museum. Her work can also be seen at the United States Embassy in Berlin, Germany and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. She is the author of several books including Touching Quiet: Reflections in Solitude. Weisel is the editor of the Holocaust survivor book, Daughters of Absence. Selected solo exhibitions 2017 Mediations of Love, Rosenbach Contemporary, Israel 2014–2018 Crossover: Glass Installation, Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv 2013 Not Neutral, Lorch & Seidel Galerie, Berlin, Germany 2013 NOT NEUTRAL, Kreeger Museum, Washington, DC 2011 Visiting Artist Exhibition, Gensler Architects, Washington, DC 2010 AFTER: The Survival of Beauty, Jean Albano Gallery, Chicago, IL 2009 Full Circle, Lorch & Seidel Galerie, Berlin, Germany 2008 Of Roses and Rasa, Prada Gallery, Washington, DC 2006 Words on a Journey, Katzen Arts Center, American University, Washington, DC 2005 Out of the Blue, Reed Savage Gallery, Miami, FL Cover to Cover, Maryland Federation of Art, Annapolis, MD 2004 All That is Remembered, Jean Albano Gallery, Chicago, IL 25 Years of Painting, Strand on Volta Gallery, Washington, DC 2003 Nine Anniversaries of Blue, Jean Albano Gallery, Chicago, IL 2002 Translations, Troyer Gallery, Washington, DC Tikkun Ha'Olam: Meditations in Blue, Yale University, New Haven, CT Beauty as Consolation, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 2001 Ella the Muse, Lydon Fine Arts, Chicago, IL 1999–2000 Mindy Weisel, 1979–1999, Lydon Fine Arts, Chicago, IL 1999 In the Presence of Absence, Troyer Gallery, Washington, DC 1997 A Place for Memory, Troyer Fitzpatrick Lassman, Washington, DC 1995 Lili, Let's Dance, Troyer Fitzpatrick Lassman, Washington, DC 1993 Touching Quiet, Jones Troyer Fitzpatrick, Washington, DC 1992 A Harmony of Sorts, Jones Troyer Fitzpatrick, Washington, DC 1990 Night of the Soul, Daniel Broder Gallery, New York 1989 Echoes, Jones Troyer Fitzpatrick, Washington, DC 1986 Selected Paintings, Baumgartner Gallery, Washington, DC 1985 Passions and Appearances, Bertha Urdang Gallery, New York, NY Gypsy, Baumgartner Gallery, Washington, DC Layers of Time, Elise Meyer, New York 1984 Black Gifts, Baumgartner Gallery, Washington, DC 1983 Transitions: Paintings from 1979-1983, B'nai Brith Museum, Washington, DC 1982 Lili in Blue, Jack Rasmussen Gallery, Washington, DC 1981 Recent Paintings, Jack Rasmussen Gallery, Washington, DC 1980 Paintings of the Holocaust, Jack Rasmussen Gallery, Washington, DC 1977 Works on Paper, Diane Brown Gallery, Washington, DC Awards and
Mindy Weisel
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Southwest (SW or S.W.) is the southwestern quadrant of Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, and is located south of the National Mall and west of South Capitol Street. It is the smallest quadrant of the city, and contains a small number of named neighborhoods and districts, including Bellevue, Southwest Federal Center, the Southwest Waterfront, Buzzard Point, and the military installation known as Joint Base Anacostia–Bolling. Geography Southwest has the following districts and neighborhoods: the Southwest Federal Center, also called the Southwest Employment District, is the area between the National Mall and the Southeast/Southwest Freeway (Interstate 395). Southwest Federal Center contains the Smithsonian Institution museums along the south side of the Mall—including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Museum of African Art, the Freer Gallery of Art, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the National Air and Space Museum, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian—as well as the United States Botanical Gardens, L'Enfant Plaza and a large concentration of federal executive branch office buildings for departments as well the House office buildings; Southwest Federal Center is in Ward 2. the Southwest Waterfront, also called Near Southwest, is between I-395 and Fort Lesley J. McNair. Southwest Waterfront is a primarily residential neighborhood. It also is home to several Washington DC marinas, including the Washington Marina, The Capitol Yacht Club, the Gangplank Marina, and the James Creek Marina. It is also home to the Maine Avenue Fish Market, Arena Stage, the Washington Marina, Fort McNair, and Hains Point; East and West Potomac Park, a conjunction of two national parks between I-395 and the National Mall that contain the Tidal Basin, the Jefferson Memorial, and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial (West Potomac Park continues into Northwest and includes the Lincoln Memorial and World War II Memorial, both of which straddle the Southwest/Northwest boundary); Southwest Waterfront is in Ward 6, except for the unpopulated East and West Potomac Parks, which are in Ward 2. Buzzard Point, a largely under-developed industrial area between South Capitol Street and Fort McNair. Buzzard Point contains Audi Field, home of local MLS team D.C. United, winner of 4 MLS Cups. It is also home to the Matthew A. Henson Earth Conservation Center. Prior to 2013, Buzzard Point was the home of the U.S. Coast Guard, which was headquartered in a building at the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. The headquarters then moved to the former St. Elizabeths Hospital campus in Southeast Washington near Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling to a building renamed the Douglas A. Munro Coast Guard Headquarters Building. the area of Southwest that is south and east of the Anacostia River contains Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling together with the Naval Research Laboratory and the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, Job Corps Center, and Fire Department Training Center. Bolling is in Ward 8. the Bellevue neighborhood occupies all of the Southwest land between South Capitol Street (to the east) and the Anacostia and Potomac rivers (to the
Southwest (Washington, D.C.)
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The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is a museum located in Skokie, Illinois, near Chicago. According to the Center's mission statement, its founding principle is to "Remember the Past; Transform the Future." Its mission is to preserve the legacy of the Holocaust by honoring victims' memories and to educate in the service of combating hatred, prejudice, and indifference. The Museum fulfills its mission through its collections-based exhibitions and through education programs and other initiatives that promote human rights and the elimination of genocide. History The museum began in 1981 as the Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois located in a storefront on Main Street in Skokie, Illinois. The foundation and small museum were established as a response to a Neo-Nazi group's attempt to march through Skokie, in which many Holocaust survivors had settled in the decades following the atrocities. On April 19, 2009, the museum opened to the public in a new building with festivities including a keynote speech by Bill Clinton with Elie Wiesel in attendance. President Barack Obama spoke through a recorded video message, as did Shimon Peres, president of Israel. Security arrangements at the museum were tightened after the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting on June 10, 2009. Currently, the museum's volunteers include members of the Action Reconciliation Service for Peace and the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service (since 2009) that work for the museum. Take a Stand Center In 2017, the museum opened the Take a Stand Center, four interactive galleries located within the space of the museum that includes interactive Holograms of Holocaust survivors. Connected to the holograph theater is an exhibit concerning organizations and individuals that have promoted human rights including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and such figures as Ruby Bridges and Malala Yousafzai. Architecture The museum's building was designed by Stanley Tigerman. The Interior and Exhibition were co-designed by Yitzchak Mais, a former director of Yad Vashem. The first-floor Holocaust exhibition is located next to the auditorium, the main entrance hall, information and membership desks, a coatroom, a gift shop, and a library. The upper floor contains the remembrance areas, the art gallery, the upper part of the auditorium, and offices. The basement contains classrooms, an exhibition for children, an exhibition on the building's history, and a conference area. The building's facade is notably two-toned, a black half that includes the entrance doors and a white half with the exit doors. This facade is located in a narrow alley and situated so that one cannot view the entire facade from any one location. Location and access The museum is located in the northwest corner of Skokie, west of the Edens Expressway (I-94). The nearest exit is Old Orchard Road. To the east of the museum is also an abandoned railroad right of way. This right of way is considered for a new CTA Yellow Line extension, with a new terminal station in the proximity of the museum. The museum is already accessible through several bus lines nearby: CTA lines 205 and
Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center
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The Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, formally the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art and sometimes referred to as the Washington Declaration, is a statement concerning the restitution of art confiscated by the Nazi regime in Germany before and during World War II. It was released in connection with the Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets, held in Washington, D.C., United States, on 3 December 1998. The Conference The conference was hosted by the United States Department of State and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. It assembled participants from a 1995 New York symposium, The Spoils of War—World War II and Its Aftermath: The Loss, Reappearance, and Recovery of Cultural Property, along with others, and built on the Nazi Gold conference which had been held in London in December 1997. The conference was held from November 30 to December 3, 1998 and was attended by representatives of 44 countries and 13 nongovernmental organizations, art museums and auction houses. The 1998 conference's aim was to discuss Jewish losses in particular, including artworks, books, and archives, as well as insurance claims and other types of assets. 44 governments, including Germany, sent delegates, as did thirteen international non-governmental organizations. The conference organizer was the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs, Stuart E. Eizenstat, who had previously been United States Ambassador to the European Union, and its chairman was Judge Abner Mikva. U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright gave the opening address. The Principles The statement includes eleven numbered principles, prefixed: The principles are: Art that had been confiscated by the Nazis and not subsequently restituted should be identified. Relevant records and archives should be open and accessible to researchers, in accordance with the guidelines of the International Council on Archives. Resources and personnel should be made available to facilitate the identification of all art that had been confiscated by the Nazis and not subsequently restituted. In establishing that a work of art had been confiscated by the Nazis and not subsequently restituted, consideration should be given to unavoidable gaps or ambiguities in the provenance in light of the passage of time and the circumstances of the Holocaust era. Every effort should be made to publicize art that is found to have been confiscated by the Nazis and not subsequently restituted in order to locate its pre-War owners or their heirs. Efforts should be made to establish a central registry of such information. Pre-War owners and their heirs should be encouraged to come forward and make known their claims to art that was confiscated by the Nazis and not subsequently restituted. If the pre-War owners of art that is found to have been confiscated by the Nazis and not subsequently restituted, or their heirs, can be identified, steps should be taken expeditiously to achieve a just and fair solution, recognizing this may vary according to the facts and circumstances surrounding a specific case. If the pre-War owners of art that is found to have been confiscated by the
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The Kreeger Museum is a modern and contemporary non-profit art museum located in Washington D.C. It is located on Foxhall Road, one of the wealthy residential neighbourhoods of the US capital, in the former home of Carmen and David Lloyd Kreeger, pillars of the Washington D.C. arts and cultural community, and it contains the art collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century paintings and sculpture they acquired from 1952 to 1988. Architecture The building, among Washington's premier modern mansions, was designed in 1963 by Pritzker Prize winning architect Philip Johnson (known for building in the "International Style" at that time), together with Richard Foster, and sits on five and a half wooded acres in Northwest DC. The design brief was for a private residence that, one day, would become a museum habouring the extensive art collection acquired by the Kreegers. The building served as the Kreeger home from 1967 to 1990. On June 1, 1994, the Kreeger Museum opened to the public. Johnson proposed a modern interpretation of a Roman villa, complete with sculpture terraces and reflecting pools, set in a décor of sprawling indoor and outdoor gardens. This may have resulted in his choice to build with travertine, a kind of young limestone, often used in Ancient Roman architecture and in neoclassical buildings, long the favourite style for government buildings in Washington, but mostly eschewed by other proponents of modernist architecture. The house is protected from the main road by a 435 ft (132,5 m) long wall in rough-hewn travertine. For the Kreeger residence, Johnson envisaged a composition of asymmetrically arranged, groin-vaulted cubes with travertine walls facing the street and glass walls that open up vistas onto the wooded site surrounding the house. The building with a gross surface area of 24,000 ft2 (2230 m2) was designed on the basis of a modular system of cubes measuring 22 x 22 x 22 ft (6,7 x 6,7 x 6,7 m). The modular concept allowed the cubes to be adapted for different functions : living space, gallery space, and often, both. The largest open space in the building, The Great Hall, a two-story space that rises up to 25 feet (7,6 m), is topped by 3 vaulted domes that create a natural amplification system and provide for the excellent acoustics especially suited to chamber and piano music. The architect's special consideration for the use of natural light and the articulation of structure, expressed by the travertine-covered reinforced concrete frame, the slim vaults covering each 22-foot module, or the baluster-like posts of the steel trusses that separate each vault, is paramount and complements the clarity of the plan. Without knowing the architect’s intention, visitors experience an unusual calm in moving from one space to another. The particular dimensional units of similar size and the attention of the architect to progression through them is the “secret” to the pleasure of experiencing this particular building. In the original design, the art galleries on all three levels did not invade the private areas but were adjacent to
Kreeger Museum
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Michael Kenna (born 1953) is an English photographer best known for his unusual black and white landscapes featuring ethereal light achieved by photographing at dawn or at night with exposures of up to 10 hours. His photos concentrate on the interaction between ephemeral atmospheric condition of the natural landscape, and human-made structures and sculptural mass. Many books have been published of his work, the subjects of which range from The Rouge, in Dearborn Michigan, to the snow-covered island of Hokkaido, Japan. Kenna's work is also held in permanent collections at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Biography Kenna was born in 1953 in the industrial town of Widnes in the northwest of England. Kenna grew up with five siblings in a poor, working-class, Irish-Catholic family. He attended seminary school for seven years (until age 17), with the intention of becoming a priest. After discovering his talent for art, he decided against joining the holy priesthood in favor of a more creative career, despite the fact that his family would not have considered his interest a realistic livelihood option. After a year at the Banbury School of Art, where he received his first photographic instruction, Kenna applied to the London College of Printing in both the graphic design and commercial photography departments, figuring he would go with the one that accepted him first (he graduated from the latter, in 1976). While pursuing his hobby of landscape photography, he took every chance to practice his craft commercially. He photographed theater dress rehearsals, and for record companies and the press; assisted other photographers, and sold stock photos of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Cornell Capa, Marc Riboud and Jacques-Henri Lartigue for the John Hillelson Agency on Fleet Street. In 1977, Kenna moved to San Francisco for the opportunity to show and sell his work in galleries. There, he met Ruth Bernhard, who hired him as her printer in 1977. Over the next eight years, she introduced him to the creative potential of the printing process, in her unique methods of manipulating and interpreting a negative. Work Kenna's photography focuses on unusual landscapes with ethereal light achieved by photographing at dawn or at night with exposures of up to 10 hours. Since about 1986 he has mainly used Hasselblad medium format and Holga cameras and this accounts for the square format of most of his photographs. The main exception was for the photographs in Monique's Kindergarten for which a 4×5 large format camera was employed. His work has been shown in galleries and museum exhibitions in Asia, Australia and Europe. He has photographs in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Patrimoine photographique in Paris, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. His photography of the ruins of concentration camps was featured in the opening credits of the Holocaust film Esther's Diary (2010). Kenna has also
Michael Kenna (photographer)
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Allen Dester Carter (June 29, 1947 – December 18, 2008), known as 'Big Al' Carter, was an Alexandria, Virginia artist and public school art teacher in Washington, D.C. When profiled by The Washington Post Magazine in May 2006, Carter estimated that he had 20,000 works of art—"from intricate etchings to enormous day-glo paintings"—in the 900-square-foot space where he lived. Carter worked across all media, from large format photographs, to pen-and-ink drawings, to mono prints, etchings, paintings, murals and ceramics. He often incorporated found objects and other everyday materials—like popsicle sticks, buttons, and clothes pins into his work. His work featured people he met fishing along the Potomac River, friends, and family members. Much of his work is whimsical with bold colors and lines, but he also addressed themes of poverty, racism, death and dying, religion and spirituality. Education Carter received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio in 1972, and returned to Washington to do post-graduate work and teach at American University. In 1995, he received an Honorary Master of Fine Arts degree, also from the Columbus College of Art and Design. Exhibitions During his life, Carter exhibited widely in galleries and museums - usually around the Mid Atlantic - including in exhibitions with major African American artists, including painter and collage artist Romare Bearden. He also exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Freer Gallery of Art, both in Washington, D.C; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond; the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; The Portsmouth Museum in Virginia; the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, NC; and the Alexandria Black History Museum in Alexandria, VA. Soon after his death, a retrospective of his works was staged at Vanderbilt University's Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy. In 2015, 80 of his paintings, sculptures, drawings, and assemblages were exhibited at the Arizona State University Art Museum. A more recent retrospective was held in 2019 at the Fred Schnider Gallery of Art in Arlington, VA. Carter's artworks are in permanent collections at the Smithsonian Museum and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, both in Washington, DC. He also created public murals in Roanoke, VA, Washington, DC, Asheville, NC, Raleigh, NC, and Winston-Salem, NC. In 1992, Carter was selected to paint the official mural commemorating the 200th anniversary of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Awards Carter was awarded the Kansas City key to the city, a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship, and a DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities Artist-In-Residence award. Critical acclaim Carter's work attracted a lot of critical acclaim during his career, and yet he "did not allow his artwork to be shown in the country's art capital, New York, where he could have found greater renown and remuneration." "Carter's art is protean, large-hearted, never prissy," Washington Post critic Paul Richard wrote of a 1985 exhibition at a local gallery. "Warmth pours from the walls. To walk into the
Allen 'Big Al' Carter
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HumanitiesDC, formerly known as the Humanities Council of Washington, DC, is an American non-profit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities based in Washington, D.C. Humanities DC was founded in 1980 to fund and produce public humanities programming in the District of Columbia. It is one of 56 state humanities councils founded in the wake of the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965. The HumanitiesDC office is located in the historic Uline Arena, 1140 3rd Street NE, 2nd Floor, Washington, DC 20002. Rebecca Lemos-Otero was hired as the new Executive Director in September 2021. History Founded in 1980 as the D.C. Community Humanities Council, Humanities DC funded several high-profile documentary films including The Stone Carvers in 1984, Fishing in the City in 1986, and Fine Food, Fine Pastries, Open 6 to 9 in 1989. During the 1990s, Humanities DC began producing its own public programming, to complement the public-humanities work of its grantees. In 2005, in partnership with the DC Office of Historic Preservation, Humanities DC launched the DC Community Heritage Project, a combination of grants and programs aimed at empowering DC residents to research, disseminate, and preserve their own community histories. In 2010, Humanities DC created the DC Digital Museum, an online repository of projects funded through its grant programs. The DC Digital Museum's collection of interpreted and primary source materials are available for download, streaming, or to borrow depending on copyright limitations. Current activities Humanities DC continues to offer a combination of grants and public programs. Grants DC Docs Partnership Grant Humanities Festival Partnership Grant Soul of the City Grant - DC Community Heritage Project Grant - Humanities Vision Grant Programs Soul of the City - An award-winning youth program that uses the humanities disciplines to encourage leadership. Humanitini - A monthly program that brings an engaging panel of humanists into a DC bar or restaurant during happy hour. House History Days - These workshops are conducted twice a year in either the Washingtoniana Division at the DC Public Library or the Historical Society of Washington, DC. Participants learn how to use archival resources to research the history of their historic properties. DC Community Heritage Project Showcase - Recent DCCHP grantees display their projects at a public event. DC Digital Museum The DC Digital Museum is an archive of interpreted and primary source materials related to life in Washington, DC. The collection is built around the funded projects Humanities DC has collected since its founding. In 2014, Humanities DC launched Your DC Digital Museum, a series of public digitization events aimed at teaching residents about personal digital preservation and encouraging new submissions to the digital collection. See also List of state humanities councils References 1980 establishments in Washington, D.C. District of Columbia Organizations established in 1980
Humanities DC
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Eva Salier (née Hellendag; March 26, 1923 – August 12, 2014) was an artist, author and a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust. Early life, imprisonment She was born on March 26, 1923, in Koblenz to Jewish parents Simon Hellendag (a Dutch merchant) and his wife Antonie. She attended Horchheim elementary school from 1929 until 1933, when the Nazis rose to power. In 1933 she started at the Hilda School and where anti-Semitism was on the rise, she was spat on and insulted. Her father attempted to get her to England but died before that was possible, just as she was expelled from school. In 1938 her mother sent her to the Netherlands, where she was captured by Nazis. Officers separated her from the other 499 detainees and forgot about her location. She escaped, but was later arrested again with her family and made to do forced labour. In 1944 she was taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau but spared death after being declared fit to work and forced to assemble radios. In 1945 she was liberated. Liberation, adult life in the US After World War II she emigrated to the United States, living most of the rest of her life in New Jersey. Eva recalls that in 1946 America people didn't believe the stories of her holocaust experience, or didn't want to hear them. Originally recorded for her son, Eva's records of these events were forgotten for decades before being rediscovered and published. The story of her enslavement by the Nazis: "The Survival of a Spirit", is a summation of the hardships suffered by her small group of "girls" as they were forcibly moved between various secret locations where they worked on electronic gear, including sending tubes for the enigma coding machine and V-2 guidance systems. As she tells the story, she worked on the first solid state transistors that would replace the tubes in the guidance system of the V-2. But this has never seen the light of day. The book was also translated into German as Lebensweg einer Koblenzer Jüdin and as Ungebrochen durch die Hölle. Her memoir is notable for its discussion of the use of humour as a coping tool to deal with traumatic events. Her art work can be found in the book published in Sweden under the title “Pa Gransen Mellon Kroger och Fred” (On the boarder between War and Peace - memorial images from Malmo (Sweden) 1939-1945. Pages 140-141). Salier taught art and painted. Her work is in the collection of the Goodwin Holocaust Museum and the Koblenz Mittelrhein Museum. In 1995 Salier was interviewed, and the record of that interview is in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Additionally, some of her letters from Vught concentration camp to her mother have been archived at the Holocaust Museum. A book of her collected works can be found at several public libraries and the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. References 1923 births 2014 deaths 20th-century American painters 21st-century American painters Emigrants from Allied-occupied Germany to the United
Eva Salier
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Tarik Samarah is a Bosnian photographer who works in artistic and documentary photography. Samarah was born in 1965 in Zagreb to Bosnian and Sudanese parents. He spent years compiling the project "Srebrenica - genocide at the heart of Europe". He has widely exhibited his works most notably at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC and United Nations building in New York. He is also renowned for his billboard campaign in Republic of Serbia. The campaign exhibited the images of Srebrenica massacre on large commercial billboards in the cities across Serbia as a method of raising awareness about event that took place during the Srebrenica Genocide. Biography Tarik Samarah (photographer and founder of the Memorial Gallery 11/07/95) was born in Zagreb, spent his childhood in Ljubuski and for the last thirty years he lives and works in Sarajevo. His interests mainly reside in the field of artistic and documentary photography, and his most significant professional success is deemed to be the Srebrenica – genocide in the heart of Europe project – a series of black-and-white photographs documenting the aftermath of Srebrenica genocide. His photographs have been exhibited in many renowned art galleries, museums and public places in the world, both independently and in collective exhibitions such as: U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C, UN Headquarters – New York, Galerie du jour – Paris, Dutch Parliament in the Hague, Memorial Center Westerbork, Pordenone Arte Contemporanea – Italy, travelling exhibition of Anne Frank Museum – Rabat, Cape Town, Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, Skokie – Chicago, Norwegian Center for the Study of the Holocaust & Religious Minorities – Oslo, The Plaine de Plainpalais – Geneva, Westminster Abbey – London and many others. Samarah is author of two publications of his photographs; the second one – monography “Srebrenica” had been published in two editions in Bosnian-English and Catalan-English languages. Samarah’s photographs also went around the world on the covers of various scientific and research books and publications. Samarah is the awarded author. Award of the International Peace Center “Freedom”, GRAND-PRIX Award for the Applied Art for 2005, Award of the Book Fair Ljubljana are some of the recognitions that he has received for his work and dedication. Today, his photographs form the permanent exhibit in Memorial Gallery 11/07/95 located in Sarajevo, a gallery that represents the final goal and summation of Samarah’s work on the topic. Exhibitions „11 July“, Memorial Center Potočari (2003) „Srebrenica“, Parliament Kingdom of the Netherlands (2005) „Abondened in Srebrenica: 10 years later“, Holocaust Museum Washington (2005) “Ten Years Later: commemorative art, exhibitions, art installations, screening of the movies and presentation“ , UN headquarters New York (2005) “8372 didn't arrived”, Museum Mimara, Zagreb (2006) “My Enemies: Nationalism and Xhenophobia”, Vivisect fest, Novi Sad (2006) „Srebrenica", Memorial Center Camp Westerbork, Holandija (2007) „Our Story“, Galerie du jour, Paris (2009) „Srebrenica“, War Photo Limited, Dubrovnik (2012) “Aftermath Project – Changing Cultural Landscape – Tendencies of engaged post-Yugoslav contemporary photography” (joined exhibition) (PARCO Pordenone Arte Contemporanea - Italy, Spazi Espositivi via Bertossi), Pordenone,
Tarik Samarah
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Cultural Tourism DC was an independent non-profit coalition of more than 230 culture, heritage, and community-based organizations in Washington, DC. Cultural Tourism DC and its members develop and present programs in Washington for area residents and visitors. Member organizations represent cultural and community organizations throughout Washington, DC; they include large institutions such as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and U.S. National Arboretum to smaller ones such as the Frederick Douglass House and the Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens. In 2022, Events DC acquired Cultural Tourism DC and CTDC wound down its operations as a standalone entity. Programs Cultural Tourism DC (CTDC) offered a range of guided and self-guided walking tours of historic neighborhoods in Washington, DC. These Neighborhood Heritage Trails relate the history of DC's communities through poster-sized street signs displaying text, maps, and historic photos. The walking tours can be navigated with an accompanying free guidebook; a few of the tours also offer an accompanying audio walking tour guide. As of 2018, CTDC had created Heritage Trails for 18 DC neighborhoods, the most recent of which is in Eckington: Anacostia Adams Morgan Barracks Row Brightwood Columbia Heights Greater Deanwood Downtown Eckington Federal Triangle Georgia Ave./Pleasant Plains Greater H Street NE LeDroit Park/Bloomingdale Logan Circle Mount Pleasant Shaw Southwest Tenleytown Greater U Street Additional heritage trail markers are in other DC neighborhoods as part of the African American Heritage Trail, which highlights more than 200 significant sites from African American history around the city. Other notable events organized by Cultural Tourism DC included: Passport DC, an annual event each May where many of the embassies and international cultural centers in Washington, DC open their doors to showcase their culture, art, music, dance and food. The event features street festivals, open houses, embassy events, special performances and other events, including the annual EU Open House and Around the World Embassy Tour. WalkingTown DC and BikingTown DC, a two-week program that features free guided walking and biking tours of neighborhoods across the city. Tour topics include history, architecture, and local development. The Embassy Chef Challenge, an annual fundraising benefit featuring international tastings, awards, entertainment, and a silent auction. PorchFest, which invites Washington area visitors to celebrate local talent by turning the front stoops of several neighborhood homes and businesses into performance spaces where local musicians play for the community. References External links Cultural Tourism DC official website About Cultural Tourism DC DC Heritage Trails via NPS Tourism in Washington, D.C. Organizations based in Washington, D.C.
Cultural Tourism DC
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Amber Robles-Gordon (born 1977 San Juan, Puerto Rico) is an American mixed media visual artist. She resides in Washington, DC and predominantly works with found objects and textiles to create assemblages, large-scale sculptures, installations and public artwork. Education She received a BS in 2005 from Trinity College, in Washington, DC and subsequently an MFA (Painting) in 2011 from Howard University, also in Washington, DC. Robles-Gordon has been a key member of the Black Artists DC, (BADC) serving as exhibitions coordinator, Vice President and President. Robles-Gordon is also the co-founder of Delusions of Grandeur Artist Collective. Artwork Robles-Gordon has exhibited widely in the US, Europe, and Asia. In 2010 she was granted an apprenticeship with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities to create a public art installation as part of the D.C. Creates Public Arts Program. She was subsequently also commissioned to create temporary and permanent public art installations for the Washington Projects for the Arts, the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Association (NVFAA), the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C., Howard University, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Reviews In a 2018 review of her two-person show at the Morton Fine Art Gallery in Washington, DC, The Washington Post noted that "Robles-Gordon, a D.C. native, is known for hanging strands of textiles and other found objects in intricate arrangements... Whether seen as cosmic or botanical, the artist's circling compositions exalt natural cycles." A few years earlier, The Washington Post had observed that "Working entirely with found objects, the Caribbean-rooted local artist arrays ribbons and scraps on (mostly) wire frameworks. The result is a riot of colors and patterns, evoking the tropics while playing on the contrast between the rigid frames and malleable fabric." Solo Shows 1995 The Art, The Brittany, Arlington, VA 1997 The Artwork of A. Robles-Gordon, Dance Place Exhibition Space, Washington, DC 2007 Can You Free Me?, Ramee’ Gallery, Washington, DC 2010 Matrices of Transformation, Michael Platt Studio Gallery, Washington, DC 2011 Milked, National League of American Penn Woman, Washington, DC 2011 Wired, Installation and Exhibit, Pleasant Plains Workshop, Washington, DC 2012 Milked, Riverviews Art Space, Lynchburg, Virginia 2012 With Every Fiber of My Being, Honfleur Gallery, Washington, DC 2017 Arts Center/Gallery Delaware State University, Dover, DE 2017 Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, Lancaster, PA 2018 Kohl Gallery at Washington College, Chestertown, MD 2018 Third Eye Open, Morton Fine Art, Washington, DC 2020 American University (upcoming), American University Museum at Katzen Arts Center, Washington, DC Museum and University Group Shows 2006 Mother and Child: Expression of Love, Smithsonian Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History, Washington, DC 2006 Sistahs, In Our Own Words, Banneker Douglass Museum, Annapolis, MD 2007 A Creative Profile: Artist of the East Bank, Smithsonian Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History, Washington, DC 2009 Colorblind/Colorsight, The Rotunda Gallery at American University, Washington, DC 2009 Migrations: BADC Exhibit, Luther Collage, Decorah, Iowa 2010 Global Art Buzz, University of California, Washington Center, Washington, DC 2011 Transformer Silent Auction Exhibition, Corcoran
Amber Robles-Gordon
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This list of museums in Washington, D.C. encompasses museums defined for this context as institutions (including nonprofit organizations, government entities, and private businesses) that collect and care for objects of cultural, artistic, scientific, or historical interest and make their collections or related exhibits available for public viewing. Also included are university and non-profit art galleries. Museums that exist only in cyberspace (i.e., virtual museums) are not included. The present list numbers 82 museums. Museums Defunct museums Army Medical Museum and Library, opened 1862, became the National Museum of Health and Medicine in 1989 and relocated to Silver Spring, Maryland in 2011 Bead Museum, closed December 2008, museum website Black Fashion Museum, founded 1979, moved to Washington in 1994, closed in 2007 and collection donated to the National Museum of African American History and Culture Corcoran Gallery of Art, open 1869–2014. Art holdings donated to the National Gallery of Art, building donated to George Washington University. Fondo del Sol Madame Tussauds Washington D.C., 2007–2021, featured wax sculptures of famous figures from politics, culture, sports, music and television, including the 45 U.S. presidents from George Washington to Donald Trump Marine Corps Museum, 1960–2005, collections now part of the National Museum of the Marine Corps National Gallery of Caricature and Cartoon Art, open 1994–1997, collections now at the Library of Congress. National Jewish Museum, collections now online, trying to establish to new museum National Museum of Crime & Punishment, closed in September 2015 and is now operated as Alcatraz East in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee National Pinball Museum, website, planned move to Baltimore, Maryland Newseum, founded 1997 in Rosslyn, Virginia, moved to Washington in 2008, closed December 2019 and is currently seeking new location. Washington Doll's House and Toy Museum, founded in 1975, closed 2004. Washington Gallery of Modern Art USS Barry (DD-933), opened as a museum ship in 1984, closed in 2015 See also Arboreta in Washington, D.C. (category) Aquaria in Washington, D.C. (category) Botanical gardens in Washington, D.C. (category) Houses in Washington, D.C. (category) Museums list Nature centers in Washington, D.C. Observatories in Washington, D.C. (category) Smithsonian museums Architecture of Washington, D.C. References External links Cultural Tourism DC Museums Washington, D.C. Washington Museums
List of museums in Washington, D.C.
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The National Children's Museum is a children's museum and science center in downtown Washington, D.C. It is intended to serve children up to age 12 and their families through interactive exhibits exploring science, technology, engineering, art, and math. Founded in 1974, the museum operated from 1979 to 2004 at 220 H Street, NE. It then operated as a "museum without walls" until 2009, when it opened a new location in National Harbor, Maryland. That closed in 2015. A new location opened on February 24, 2020, in the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington, before temporarily closing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The museum reopened on September 2, 2021. The museum aims to inspire children to care about and change the world. The museum received a U.S. Congressional designation in 2003 when Congress identified a need for a nationally recognized cultural and educational institution specifically for children. History Judith Grummon Nelson founded the Capital Children's Museum in 1974. In 1979, the museum moved into a building at 220 H Street, NE, Washington, D.C., a former Little Sisters of the Poor home. The H Street location closed in August 2004. From 2004 to 2012, National Children's Museum operated as a "museum without walls," forging partnerships with other organizations. The museum participated in a wide variety of events, which reached hundreds of thousands of children and families, including the White House Easter Egg Roll, the National Cherry Blossom Festival, and Nickelodeon's Worldwide Day of Play. Museum staff also conducted educational outreach activities in 14 states. From 2009 to 2015, the museum was located in National Harbor, Maryland, first at the Launch Zone, a 2,700-square-foot space, and then in a more prominent location with exhibits such as "3 & Under" and "Our World." In November 2014, the museum's leadership announced that the institution would return to Washington, D.C.; the National Harbor location closed in January 2015. Downtown location After a long search for a new location, the museum's Board of Trustees identified an empty federal space adjacent to the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington, DC, a short walk from the National Mall and the White House. The 30,000-square-foot space became the museum's new home. It was brought to life with modern exhibits that explore STEAM concepts, including early computer science skills, data literacy, the design thinking process, and environmental science. Travel Channel listed the museum in its "10 Most Anticipated U.S. Museum Openings of 2019," and USA Today included it in its list of "Great New Museums for 2019." This location was originally scheduled to open in March 2019. Its opening was delayed until November 1, 2019, and then again until February 24, 2020. Notes External links National Children's Museum National Children's Museum Facebook Page National Children's Museum Instagram National Children's Museum Twitter The 90's raw: Capital Children's Museum Video of the Capital Children's Museum in the 1990s Further reading Sutton, Benjamin, "National Children’s Museum Eyes November Opening, Will Boast on Big Wheel Racetrack", ArtInfo, June 6, 2012 Parker, Lonnae O'Neal, "National Children’s
National Children's Museum
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Konrad Kwiet (born 1941) is a historian and scholar of the Holocaust. He is currently Pratt Foundation Professor at the University of Sydney and Resident Historian at the Sydney Jewish Museum. He has worked in universities, museums and research centres around the world, including Heidelberg, Israel, Washington DC, Oxford and Berlin. Career Konrad Kwiet was born in Swinemünde in 1941 and educated in Amsterdam and Berlin. He studied history at the Technical University of Berlin, completing his PhD on Nazi policy in the Netherlands. Kwiet emigrated to Australia in 1976 to take up a lecturing position at the University of New South Wales. He retired as Emeritus Professor from Macquarie University in 2000 and is currently Pratt Foundation Professor for Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at the University of Sydney. From 1987 to 1994, he was Chief Historical Consultant to the Special Investigations Unit investigating Nazi war criminals in Australia, set up after research by the journalist Mark Aarons. Kwiet has appeared regularly in the Australian media to comment on historical debates and events, such as the Daniel Goldhagen debate, the work of Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust, and genocide. In 2022, Kwiet was put in charge of an investigation into the Nazi connections of Lithuanian-Australian art collector Bob Sredersas. Books Contemporary Responses to the Holocaust (2004, together with J Matthaeus) Einsatz im Reichkommissariat Ostland (1998, together with W Benz and J Matthaeus) Selbstbehauptung und Widerstand (1984, together with H Eschwege) Reichskommissariat Niederlande (1968) Ausbildungsziel Judenmord? (2003, together with J.Matthaueus,J.Foerster and R. Breitman) References External links https://web.archive.org/web/20130119035000/http://www.jwire.com.au/news/face-to-face-with-professor-konrad-kwiet/24267 http://sydney.edu.au/research/opportunities/supervisors/824 http://www.sbs.com.br/9780195389159/APPROACHING-AN-AUSCHWITZ-SURVIVOR/?codigo_produto=101438858 http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/holocaust-loot-online/2947812 http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/28/1019441328553.html http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13531193.html Living people 1941 births Technical University of Berlin alumni Academic staff of the University of New South Wales Academic staff of Macquarie University Historians of the Holocaust Academic staff of the University of Sydney People from Świnoujście
Konrad Kwiet
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Smithsonian station is a Washington Metro station at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. The side platformed station was opened on July 1, 1977, and is operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). It is a stop on the Blue, Orange and Silver Lines. The station's south entrance is at the southwest corner of Independence Avenue and 12th Street, Southwest, the street elevator is at the northwest corner of the same intersection, and the north entrance is on the south side of the Mall near Jefferson Drive, Southwest. The station is named for its proximity to the Smithsonian Institution's museums and is close to the Washington Monument, the Tidal Basin and other tourist attractions on and near the National Mall. The station is also near several federal office buildings, including those of the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy. History The station opened on July 1, 1977. Its opening coincided with the completion of of rail between National Airport and RFK Stadium and the opening of the Arlington Cemetery, Capitol South, Crystal City, Eastern Market, Farragut West, Federal Center SW, Federal Triangle, Foggy Bottom–GWU, L'Enfant Plaza, McPherson Square, National Airport, Pentagon, Pentagon City, Potomac Avenue, Rosslyn, and Stadium–Armory stations. Orange Line service to the station began upon the line's opening on November 20, 1978. Silver Line service at Smithsonian station began on July 26, 2014. Near this station, Metro had its first fatalities, which occurred on January 13, 1982, when a train derailed. On the same day, Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the 14th Street Bridge. The two events closed the federal government in the Washington Metropolitan Area. The Smithsonian station was closed all day on the Fourth of July from 2002 to 2008, as its north entrance is within the secure perimeter established around the National Mall during Independence Day events. Metro stopped closing Smithsonian station on July 4 beginning in 2009. On April 14, 2016, Metro proposed to change the name of the station adding "National Mall" to the station name. On June 25, 2017, "National Mall" was added as a subtitle to "Smithsonian". From March 19, 2020, until June 28, 2020, this station was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From January 15 to January 21, 2021, this station was closed because of security concerns due to the Inauguration of Joe Biden. Station layout Notable places nearby Several Federal Government buildings, including: Bureau of Engraving and Printing United States Department of Agriculture United States Department of Energy National Mall Several Smithsonian museums, nearest are: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Arts and Industries Building Freer Gallery Hirshhorn Museum National Museum of African Art National Museum of American History National Museum of Natural History National Museum of African American History and Culture Smithsonian Institution Building (The "Castle") Tidal Basin (where the cherry blossoms bloom) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Washington Monument References External links The Schumin Web Transit Center: Smithsonian Station The Mall Entrance (North Entrance) is at coordinates The Independence Avenue and
Smithsonian station
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The Montreal Holocaust Museum () is a museum located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is dedicated to educating people of all ages and backgrounds about the Holocaust, while sensitizing the public to the universal perils of antisemitism, racism, hate and indifference. Through the museum, its commemorative programs and educational initiatives, it aims to promote respect for diversity and the sanctity of human life. The Museum was founded in 1979 as the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre () and is Canada's first and only recognized Holocaust museum. History The Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre was founded in 1979 by members of the Association of Survivors of Nazi Oppression and young members of the Montreal Jewish community, and led by Steven Cummings. It opened in its current location in the Allied Jewish Community Services building (now Federation CJA). The Centre served as a museum with a permanent exhibition and a memorial centre. After World War II, Jewish immigrants settled in Montreal, making it the third largest population of Holocaust survivors in the world in proportion to its inhabitants after Israel and New York. The Centre became distinguished for its collection featuring artefacts and testimonies primarily from local survivors. In 2003, the Centre underwent a renovation funded by government grants and private and corporate donations to expand and improve the existing collection. The centre launched the current permanent exhibit, "To Learn, To Feel, To Remember". In 2010, director Carl Leblanc released the documentary film The Heart of Auschwitz, based on the heart-shaped book exhibited in the museum. The film retraces the book's history and the stories of the women who signed it. He later published Artefact in 2012, a fictional story inspired by the book. In 2013, a free app was developed for electronic devices and smartphones on Apple and Android platforms. The app can be used in the permanent exhibition and as an educational tool for classrooms unable to visit the museum. It provides additional in-depth information on the subjects and objects displayed in the exhibit. Interactive touch-screens featuring maps and timelines were added in 2014 to modernize the exhibit. In 2016, the centre was renamed the Montreal Holocaust Museum to reinforce its openness to the public and its mandate as the only Holocaust museum in Canada. Collection The majority of the Museum's collection is composed of artefacts donated by local Holocaust survivors and their descendants. To date, the museum's collection of artefacts numbers over 12,900 objects relating to life before, during and after the Holocaust, with 85% of the collection digitized. Over 100 key artefacts from the collection are displayed on the museum's website and the Artefacts Canada database. Over 4,000 artefacts are accessible digitally through the Canadian Jewish Heritage Network. Notable objects in the collection include an urn containing ashes from Auschwitz-Birkenau that is on permanent display in the museum's commemoration room, and the Heart from Auschwitz, a heart-shaped book with birthday wishes made by a group of young women in Auschwitz. The Heart was given to a woman named Fania Fainer,
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America's Black Holocaust Museum (ABHM) is dedicated to the history of the Black Holocaust in America. The museum was founded in 1988 by James Cameron, who became well known after surviving a lynching. Cameron died in 2006, and in 2008, the museum's board of directors announced that the museum would be closed temporarily because of the reduced funding that occurred during the 2008 Great Recession. A foundation was created in 2012 to continue Cameron's legacy and vision. In 2012, the foundation re-opened ABHM as a 3,200-plus-page virtual museum available on their website. In 2016, the foundation announced plans to move the physical museum to Milwaukee's historic Bronzeville neighborhood, with an originally-planned 2019 re-opening, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the re-opening was delayed. Shortly following, an anonymous $10 million donation in late 2021 was received, and the museum re-opened in February 2022. History James Cameron After surviving a lynching at age 16 in which two companions died, and subsequently spending five years in prison, James Cameron was determined to do something important with the rest of his life. He got an education, worked hard, raised five children, and spent his life studying the African-American experience in the United States. He worked in civil rights, wrote independent articles, pamphlets, and a memoir called A Time of Terror: A Survivor's Story. Cameron also amassed a large collection of materials and artifacts related to African-American history. After retirement, Cameron and his wife visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum in Israel. He thought that museum's focus on the personal history of individuals and their stories led to a better understanding of the reality of the Holocaust. Then living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1988 he founded his museum with the help of philanthropist Daniel Bader, having collected materials on the African-American experience in the US for many years. Physical museum ABHM's facility, located in Milwaukee, is the only memorial and museum that interprets the African American experience in the United States as an ongoing holocaust (series of mass atrocities) from the time of captivity in Africa to the present day. The museum examines the tragic legacies of slavery and promotes racial repair, reconciliation, and healing through developing awareness and empathy. Cameron died in 2006; in 2008, the museum's board of directors announced that the museum would be closed temporarily because of financial problems. The original museum was demolished in early 2017. The site, including the former Garfield Avenue School, was redeveloped as the Historic Garfield School Redevelopment Program. On April 4, 2017, the developers broke ground on a new building called The Griot on the footprint (site) of the original museum. The new museum is located on the ground floor of the Griot and was scheduled to open in 2019. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the opening of the museum was put on hold. It wasn't until February of 2022 that the physical museum finally reopened. Virtual museum A new ABHM was established as a "virtual museum" by ABHM's Board of Directors, after the
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The Carnegie Library of Washington D.C., also known as Central Public Library, now known as the Apple Carnegie Library, is situated in Mount Vernon Square, Washington, D.C. History Use as library The library was donated to the public by entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie and was dedicated on January 7, 1903. It was designed by the New York firm of Ackerman & Ross in the Beaux-Arts style. It was the first Carnegie library in Washington, D.C., and the District's first desegregated public building. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as "Central Public Library", in 1969. It was used as the central public library for Washington, D.C. for almost 70 years before it became overcrowded. The central library was then moved to Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. After being shut down for ten years, it was renovated as part of University of the District of Columbia. Historical Society of Washington, D.C. In 1999, it became the headquarters for the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. The City Museum of Washington opened in the library in May 2003, but closed less than two years later. In 2014, Events DC twice sought to move the International Spy Museum into the library, but failed to win historic preservation approval. Apple Carnegie Library In September 2016, Apple Inc. proposed renovating the library into D.C.'s second Apple Store location. In December 2016, Events DC announced an agreement with the company for conversion of the space into a new store designed by Foster and Partners. The building was renamed the Apple Carnegie Library, and the Apple Store within opened on May 11, 2019. Apple hosts free daily sessions focused on photography, filmmaking, music creation, coding, design and more. On October 9, 2019, the first episode of Oprah's Book Club, a television series produced by Apple, was filmed with a live audience in the Library. The episode premiered on November 1 of the same year. The building also now houses the DC History Center on the second floor, and the Carnegie Gallery (featuring historic photographs and documents about the origins and history of the building) in the basement. See also Architecture of Washington, D.C. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library District of Columbia Public Library List of Carnegie libraries in Washington, D.C. References Carnegie libraries in Washington, D.C. Libraries on the National Register of Historic Places in Washington, D.C. Beaux-Arts architecture in Washington, D.C. Mount Vernon Square
Carnegie Library of Washington D.C.
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The Adelaide Institute was a Holocaust denial group in Australia and is considered to be antisemitic by the Australian Human Rights Commission and others. The Adelaide Institute was formed in 1995 from the former Truth Mission that was established in 1994 by Fredrick Töben, later a convicted Holocaust denier. Töben directed the Institute until his incarceration in 2009 in South Australia for contempt of court. Peter Hartung assumed the role of director of the Adelaide Institute. On assuming the role from Töben, Hartung defied the Federal Court by publishing the revisionist material that led to Töben's three months jail time. In June 2009, the Adelaide Institute was linked with an American white supremacist, James von Brunn, charged with killing a security guard in Washington's Holocaust Museum. Töben and his associates at the Adelaide Institute have denied "being Holocaust deniers" in interviews conducted by Australian media, claiming they cannot deny that which never happened. The Institute's stated goal is to restore the honor of Nazism by convincing readers that the Holocaust is a Jewish lie, but the site stopped updating after Toben's sudden death in 2020, and is now officially defunct. Activities Supporters of the Institute have in the past been active in organizations such as Australians For Free Speech, which held a rally in 1994. The Institute has also been implicated in distributing Holocaust denialist material through mainstream and alternative publications. Letters to the editor and talk radio appear to be the favourite means of disseminating the worldview of the Institute. Prior to the opening of the film Schindler's List in Adelaide, members of the institute distributed Holocaust denial pamphlets on the street and through the mail, apparently targeting those of Jewish background. Additionally, members of the Institute sent materials denying the Holocaust to prominent Australian newspapers masquerading as objective movie reviews, some of which reached publication. The activity of the Institute appears to have declined since its initial burst of activity in the mid-1990s. The Institute did maintain a website on which statements on various issues were posted from time to time but the site itself went from barely active to inactive to defunct as Toben's declining health and lack of support led to him posting fewer items even before he died in 2020, and the site basically died along with him. Legal action against Töben The Adelaide Institute website triggered the arrest of Fredrick Töben in Germany in 1998 for breaching Germany's Holocaust Law, Section 130, that outlaws "Incitement to hatred". Töben was sentenced in April 1999 to 10 months in prison, but had already served seven months during trial, and was released upon payment of a $5000 bond-Kaution. The Institute's website was drawn to the attention of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) in 2000, which ruled in Jones v Toben [2000] HREOCA 39 that a person contravenes section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act when they refer to the treatment of Jews in the 1930s and 1940s as having been "mythologised". The HREOC
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The National Women's History Museum (NWHM) is a museum and an American history organization that "researches, collects and exhibits the contributions of women to the social, cultural, economic and political life of our nation in a context of world history." The NWHM was founded in 1996 by Karen Staser. It currently offers an online museum, educational programs, scholarship and research. History The National Women's History Museum was founded in 1996 by Karen Staser. It currently curates in person and virtual exhibitions and provides resources for educators, students, and general audiences. NWHM dedicated resources since its inception to raise support and lobby Congress to fund a women’s history museum in Washington, DC. Their efforts were realized in December, 2021, when Congress approved the creation of the American Women’s History Museum (AWHM) on the National Mall. Congress made the decision to create the AWHM under the auspices of the Smithsonian, with two members of the National Women’s History Museum serving on the Smithsonian’s AWHM Advisory Council. In spring 2020, NWHM launched Women Writing History: A Coronavirus Journaling Project, an initiative "designed to ensure that women and girls’ unique voices and experiences are not left out of the telling of the COVID-19 story. Through this project, women and girls of all ages can participate through the simple act of recording their daily thoughts and experiences during this time in order to document the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on women’s lives." NWHM received more than 500 submissions, both digital and print, and published them in a searchable microsite on October 21, 2021. On April 21, 2022, the New York Times published excerpts from NWHM's journaling project: "The result, after almost two years and 500 entries, is a rich Gestaltian time capsule of the pandemic, parts of it housed on the museum’s website or archived in the cabinets of its office in Alexandria, Va. There are handwritten and typed-up poems; voice notes between friends who live far apart; an interpretive dance recorded in a solitary bedroom; even a hand-stitched quilt. These physical and digital artifacts brim with emotion and reflection." In late 2020, Congress passed legislation (P.L. 116-330, signed into law on January 13, 2021) directing the U.S. Mint to consult with the National Women's History Museum, as well as the Smithsonian Institution American Women’s History Initiative and the Bipartisan Women’s Caucus, to identify prominent American women to honor on a series of quarter dollars over four years beginning in January 2022. The women are featured on circulating and numismatic American Women Quarters™ Program coins. The public was invited to submit recommendations through a web portal hosted by NWHM, and more than 11,000 recommendations were submitted for consideration. In 2022, the National Women's History Museum announced a partnership with DC Public Library. In spring 2023, the NWHM opened their first full in-person exhibition at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C. The exhibit traces Black feminism in Washington, DC from the turn of the 20th century through the civil rights and
National Women's History Museum
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Gerald Steinacher (born 2 September 1970) is Professor of History and Hymen Rosenberg Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. After serving at the South Tyrolean Regional Archives in Bozen, he was a Joseph A. Schumpeter Research Fellow at Harvard University during 2010-2011 and in 2009 a visiting scholar at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. He lectured at the Universities of Innsbruck (Austria), Luzern (Switzerland) and Munich (Germany). In 2006 he was a Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Steinacher’s research focuses on 20th Century Central European History with emphasis on Italian Fascism, National Socialism, Holocaust and intelligence studies. He has published two books, edited nine volumes, and wrote a large number of book chapters and journal articles on these topics. His post-doctoral research (Habilitation) examined the postwar fate of Nazis, Holocaust perpetrators and the institutions, particularly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the US Government, and the Catholic Church, that aided in their escape from Europe. The result of this research came out as a book, Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's Henchmen Fled Justice. This academic book was published in several languages with the English edition put out by Oxford University Press in 2011. The book was recently awarded the 2011 National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category. Publications Ausgrenzung in die Wirtschaft? Karrieren von Südtiroler Nationalsozialisten nach 1945, in Hannes Obermair et al. (ed.), Regionale Zivilgesellschaft in Bewegung, Folio Verlag, Vienna-Bozen 2012, pp. 270–283, . Nazis on the Run: How Hitler's Henchmen Fled Justice, Oxford University Press, Oxford-New York 2011, . (together with Aram Mattioli, ed.), Für den Faschismus bauen: Architektur und Städtebau im Italien Mussolinis, Orell Fuessli Verlag, Zuerich 2009, . (together with Hans-Guenter Richardi, ed.), Für Freiheit und Recht in Europa. Der 20. Juli 1944 und der Widerstand gegen das NS-Regime in Deutschland, Österreich und Südtirol, Studienverlag, Innsbruck-Wien-Bozen 2009, . Nazis auf der Flucht. Wie Kriegsverbrecher über Italien nach Übersee entkamen, Fischer, Frankfurt/Main 2010, . Tra Duce, Führer e Negus. L'Alto Adige e la guerra d'Abissinia 1935–1941, Temi, Trento 2008. Zwischen Duce, Führer und Negus. Südtirol und der Abessinienkrieg 1935–1941, Athesia, Bozen 2006, . The Cape of Last Hope: The Flight of Nazi War Criminals through Italy to South America, in Klaus Eisterer, Günter Bischof (ed.), Transatlantic Relations. Austria and Latin America in the 19th and 20th Century (Transatlantica 1) New Brunswick 2006, pp. 203–224. Im Schatten der Geheimdienste. Südtirol 1918 bis zur Gegenwart, Studienverlag, Innsbruck-Wien-Bozen 2003, . Südtirol und die Geheimdienste 1943–1945, Studienverlag, Innsbruck 2000, . References The Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Austria, 1940–1945, in International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Volume 15, Number 2, 1 April 2002, pp. 211–221(11). Gerald Steinacher in the Wall Street Journal External links History Department University of Nebraska - Lincoln Harvard University Holocaust Memorial Museum History Department University of Luzern Gerald Steinacher on Academia.edu Website Gerald Steinacher Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Innsbruck 1970 births Academic staff
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Miles Lerman (January 6, 1920 – January 22, 2008) was an American activist who helped plan and create both the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the memorial at the Bełżec extermination camp. Lerman, a Holocaust survivor himself, had fought as a Jewish resistance fighter during World War II in Nazi German occupied Poland. Early life Lerman was born as Szmuel Milek Lerman in Tomaszów Lubelski, Poland, in 1920. His parents were Israel and Yochevet Feldzon Lerman and he was one of five children. His mother, Yochevet, owned an import and export grocery business. His father, Israel, owned several businesses throughout eastern Poland, including several flour mills in Eastern Poland and wholesale liquor and gasoline businesses. Lerman and his family fled to the city of Lwów following the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. In 1941 Lerman was captured and sent to the Vinniki forced labor camp. However, he managed to escape the camp. He spent the next 23 months as a Jewish resistance fighter hidden in the forests surrounding Lwów. He went to the Polish city of Łódź following the end of the war. There he met his wife, Krysia Rozalia Laks, whom he married in a Displaced Persons camp. The couple emigrated together to the United States in 1947. Lerman arrived in New York City in 1947 before moving to Vineland, New Jersey, in 1948. Lerman purchased a poultry farm in Vineland. He also started a series of successful real estate, gasoline and heating businesses. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Miles Lerman's involvement with the United States Holocaust Museum can be traced to 1979. That year, United States President Jimmy Carter named Lerman to the President’s Commission advisory board on the Holocaust. One of the Commission's main tasks was the creation of a museum dedicated to the remembrance of the Holocaust. The United States Congress passed a legislation granting land on the National Mall in Washington D.C. for the purpose of building the museum. However, all funds for the construction of the museum had to be raised privately. Lerman, who became chairman of the Campaign to Remember, and the committee managed to raise $190 million in order to construct and endow the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He also served simultaneously as the chairman of the future museum's International Relations Committee, which was charged with negotiating with Eastern European nations in order to obtain artifacts focusing on Jewish life and the Holocaust for the museum's permanent collection. Lerman's IR Committee managed to obtain a number of important artifacts, including actual barracks from the Birkenau concentration camp, a railroad boxcar used to transport Jewish prisoners to Treblinka, over 5,000 shoes from Majdanek and various toothbrushes, suitcases and other personal items from Auschwitz. Lerman served as chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's governing board from the time of its opening on April 22, 1993, until he left the museum in 2000. Additionally, Lerman helped to found the museum's Committee on Conscience, which works to draw
Miles Lerman
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The Museum of World Religions (MWR; ) is a museum in Yonghe District, New Taipei, Taiwan. History The museum was founded in November 2001 by Venerable Hsin Tao (心道), a Buddhist monk, and set up through the Ling Jiou Mountain Buddhist Foundation. Further elaborate opening ceremonies were held in September and November 2002 with many religious leaders and others from around the world, including the President Chen Shui-bian. The Taiwanese architect and educator Han Pao-teh was the first curator. In February 2003, an interactive multimedia was installed at the Hall of Life Travel. Architecture The museum building was designed by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, the designer of major American museums including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC and the expansion of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Exhibitions The museum presents exhibits on ten different major world religions. It also features a model called "Avatamsaka World" illustrating the Avatamsaka Sutra. Transportation The museum is accessible within walking distance North West from Yongan Market Station of the Taipei Metro. See also List of museums in Taiwan Buddhism in Taiwan References External links 2001 establishments in Taiwan Museums established in 2001 Museums in New Taipei Religious museums in Asia Religion in Taiwan
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Mark Elliott Talisman (July 16, 1941 – July 11, 2019) was a United States Chief Congressional Aide and Legislative Procedural Expert. As an aide to Ohio Congressman Charles Vanik, he was considered to have played an instrumental role in securing passage of the 1974 Jackson–Vanik amendment, which enabled the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate from the Soviet Union. In 1975 he created the Washington Action Office of the Jewish Federations of North America and served as its director for 18 years. He was also active in Holocaust Survivors affairs, as Founding Vice Chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Council, which later became the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. President Jimmy Carter appointed him as Vice Chairman, alongside Eli Wiesel, who served as chairman. The Holocaust Museum Memorial Council was wholly responsible for the establishment of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington, DC. Early life and education Talisman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 16, 1941. His father operated a gas station and his mother worked as a secretary. The family were members of Temple Emanu-el. Talisman served as president of the International Junior Red Cross when he was 14. He was also a graduate of Cleveland's John Adams High School. He attended Harvard University on a full scholarship, earning his bachelor's degree in European History in 1963. He completed his master's degree at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1972. In 1971–1972 he was a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics, where he created a seminar program for newly elected members of Congress. Political career Talisman was appointed as an administrative assistant to Congressman Charles Vanik (22nd congressional district of Ohio) in 1966, becoming the youngest administrative assistant ever appointed to a member of Congress. As Vanik's aide, Talisman is considered to have played an instrumental role in securing passage of the 1974 Jackson–Vanik amendment, the bill that enabled the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate from the Soviet Union. When the bill passed and President Gerald Ford was ready to sign it, Talisman's wife Jill was in labor with the couple's daughter, Jessica, at the Columbia Hospital for Women, located three blocks from the White House. Ford delayed the signing ceremony until the baby was safely delivered, and sent a car to bring Talisman from the hospital to the White House to witness the signing. During his congressional service, Talisman produced a television series titled Operation Government. In 40 half-hour episodes, the series explored the "history and operations of the federal government and how the three branches of government interact with each other". He was one of the chief organizers of the Bipartisan Congressional Clearinghouse in 1970 that utilized college interns to support Congressional “peace candidates” during the Vietnam war. In 1975 Talisman left Vanik's office and created the Washington Action Office of the Jewish Federations of North America. He served as its director for the next 18 years. In the late 1970s, Talisman served on the presidential commission that recommended creation of
Mark E. Talisman
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Gay Block (born 1942) is a fine art portrait photographer, who was born in Houston, Texas. Her work has been published in books, and is collected by the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the El Paso Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum (Manhattan) and the New Mexico Museum of Art. Biography Block had been interested in photography since she was a pre-teen, when she started taking pictures of her friends and family using a Brownie box camera. She recalls that she enjoyed taking candid photos and collaborating with her subjects. By the 1970s she began taking pictures of members of her own affluent Jewish community in Houston. She later photographed an older Jewish community of retirees in South Miami Beach, many of whom were Holocaust survivors. Block also photographed girls at summer camp. In 2006, Block re-photographed women who were the girls in her 1981 series from Camp Pinecliffe, twenty-five years earlier. Block collaborated with author and rabbi Malka Drucker to create Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust, both a book and traveling exhibit. Block and Drucker traveled to eleven countries and photographed over 100 Christians who had helped rescue Jews during the Holocaust. The exhibit has been seen in over fifty venues in the US and abroad, including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, in 1992. In 2003, Block's 30-year series of portraits of her mother, in photographs, video, and words, Bertha Alyce: Mother exPosed, was published by University of New Mexico Press and continues as a traveling exhibit. The book, Bertha Alyce, was cited as one of "Twelve Great Books Published During The Year 2003" by the editors of RALPH (The Review of Arts, Literature, Politics, and the Humanities). Her video of the material, "Bertha Alyce", was awarded People's Choice and Best Documentary by the Madrid International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Spain. The photographs of Bertha Alyce are not considered a conventional representation of a mother/daughter relationship; instead Block's relationship with her mother is unique. Block's documentary technique is considered by the critic to be "assured, if reminiscent of Duane Michaels or Nan Goldin." Rescuers of the Holocaust In 1986, Rabbi Harold Schulweis, author Malka Drucker and Gay Block decided to document activities of non-Jewish Europeans who risked torture and death to save Jews during the Holocaust, a topic they considered both important and under-publicized. Their work would eventually led to a book (Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust), as well as an exhibition of Block's, named Gay Block: Rescuers of the Holocaust travelled to numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, NM, Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX. References External links Official site Gay Block in the Jewish Women's Archive's: Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution 1942 births Living people American LGBT photographers Artists from Houston American women
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Benjamin Meed (born Benyomin Miedzyrzecki, February 19, 1918 – October 24, 2006), a Polish Jew, fought in the Warsaw ghetto underground, served on the Advisory Board of the President's Commission on the Holocaust, planned the 1981 World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and the 1983 American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors held in Washington, D.C., and other reunions that followed, and was President of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants. Early life Meed was born in Warsaw, Poland. He had three siblings. Career Meed was in a business high school when World War II erupted. Within a short time he was living in the Warsaw ghetto and working as a slave laborer. Recruited into the underground by his future wife Vladka Meed (née Fayge Peltel), whom he met in the midst of the war, he was responsible for rescuing ghetto fighters and finding and building hiding places for them. Using their assumed names Czeslaw Pankiewicz (Ben) and Bronislawa "Vladka" Wa(n)chalska (Fayge), they were among those Jews on the "Aryan" side of the ghetto wall who distributed the April 23, 1943, appeal from the Jewish Fighting Organization. The Meeds helped plan the 1981 World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors held in Israel, the first event of its kind. That same year, the organizers established the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors to prepare for a 1983 gathering in Washington, D.C., which attracted 20,000 survivors and their families. Meed was able to convince the Capital Centre to waive the fees for use of the facilities, but they were told that the payments to the union employees who work the venue would not be included in the waiver. After the event, the union employees, after witnessing the connections of survivors at the event, said that they also waived the charge for their services. Soon after its founding, the American Gathering established a Registry of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, the a database of survivors and their families. The Benjamin and Vladka Meed Registry of Jewish Holocaust Survivors is housed at the Museum and has become an important tool for families and researchers. He was also deeply committed to teacher training, as he and Mrs. Meed, through the American Gathering and the Jewish Labor Committee, created the "Summer Seminar Program on Holocaust and Jewish Resistance." Mr. Meed served on the Advisory Board of the President's Commission on the Holocaust, which recommended the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's establishment. He also served on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, the Museum's governing body, from 1980 to 2004, where he chaired several crucial committees: the Days of Remembrance Committee and the Museum Content Committee, which oversaw the creation of the Museum's Permanent Exhibition. He was responsible for institutionalizing Holocaust commemorations in the nation's capital, at state houses and cities across the country, and at military installations worldwide. In November 2003, in honor of the Museum's 10th anniversary, Mr. Meed conceived "A Tribute to Holocaust Survivors: A Reunion of a Special Family," which honored survivors,
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Liesbeth Heenk (born May 1, 1962) is an international publisher, author and art historian specialised in Vincent van Gogh. She is the founder of Amsterdam Publishers which is the largest international publisher of Holocaust memoirs in Europe. Biography After obtaining her BA and MA degree in art history at Leiden University, Heenk worked as assistant curator for the Van Gogh 1990 centenary exhibition held at the Kröller-Müller museum in Otterlo. She wrote her PhD at the Courtauld Institute of Art on 'Vincent van Gogh's Drawings: An Analysis of their Production and Uses' (1995). Her findings were covered in The Art Newspaper. During her work as a print specialist at Christie's in London (1994–98), she discovered Rembrandt's copperplate Abraham entertaining the Angels when examining the back of a painting on copper by Pieter Geysels. The copperplate, made by Rembrandt in 1656, was acquired at auction by the National Gallery of Art in Washington. As Director of Business Development at Sotheby's in Amsterdam, Heenk organised single-owner sales such as Treasures of a World Traveler: the Collection of Boudewijn Büch (2004), the Elephants of Prince Bernhard (2005) and the Collection of the late Frits Philips (2006). In 2009, she sat on the Scientific Committee for the Van Gogh exhibition at the Complesso del Vittoriano in Rome, while working for the Royal Household at the Royal Palace of Amsterdam. She has also sat on various committees of Dutch museums. With her imprint Amsterdam Publishers, established in 2012, Heenk publishes books about the Holocaust. Publications “As Time Goes By”, in: Seeing Differently. The Phillips Collects for a new Century, edited by Elsa Smithgall, Washington DC, 2021, pp. 234–236. Seurat, Van Gogh, Mondrian. Il Post-Impressionismo in Europa (co-editor) exhibition catalogue, Verona, Italy, 2015-2016. The 1-Hour Van Gogh Book, a Van Gogh Biography for Beginners [2012] (2015) Van Gogh's Inner Struggle: Life, Work and Mental Illness [2013] (2015) Van Gogh and Money. The Myth of the Poor Artist (2014) Jabes Heenck (1752-1782). A catalogue raisonné (in preparation) Howard Hodgkin: Prints. A catalogue raisonné, London (Thames & Hudson) 2005. Articles in Dictionary of Artists' Models, London (Fitzoy Dearborn Publishers), May 2001 Rembrandt and his Influence on eighteenth-century German and Austrian Printmakers, exhibition catalogue Museum Het Rembrandthuis (Studies from the Rembrandt Information Centre vol. I), Amsterdam, July 1998 "Rembrandt etchings from the Hermitage" (book review), Print Quarterly, April 1998, vol. XV, no 1 "A Rembrandt copperplate," Print Quarterly, September 1997, vol. XIV, no. 3, pp. 313–14 "The Discovery of an etched copperplate by Rembrandt," Kroniek van het Rambrandthuis, August 1997, no. 1-2, pp. 48–50. "Copperplate Rembrandt," Christie's International Magazine, June 1997, p. 71 "Etching by Rembrandt. Reflections of the Golden Age" (book review) Print Quarterly, vol. XIV, no. 2, June 1997, p. 202 "Van Gogh and the art market," Apollo, February 1997, vol. CXLV, no. 420, pp. 32–36. "An early Van Gogh drawing rediscovered," Christie's International Magazine, December 1996, p. 93. "Van Gogh drawings. The early years" (book review), The Burlington Magazine, August 1996, no. 1121, vol. CXXXVIII, pp.
Liesbeth Heenk
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The Holocaust Experience is a 2003 documentary by Oeke Hoogendijk that takes a serious, slightly critical, look at Holocaust museums around the globe. The film asks where the line between remembering the genocide and exploiting the dead lies and if it's already been crossed. Summary Putting Holocaust victims' hair on display became a controversial exhibit for the United States Holocaust Museum, when survivors protested that the display would be an exploitation of those who had died. The Holocaust Experience looks at this and other moral questions surrounding what has become an industry of remembrance. Sixty years after the Holocaust, survivors are dying and concentration camp infrastructure is beginning to decay. Deliberate efforts must be made in order to preserve the past. Few would argue the importance of remembering; but is there something wrong with learning about the Holocaust through blockbuster films, or with hopping off a tour bus, in fanny pack and sunscreen, into a concentration camp? The Holocaust Experience moves between the noisy, hyper-realistic Holocaust museums in America and the decaying ruins of Auschwitz to quietly critique the role of both as proper memorials. At the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., animated tour guides give rehearsed speeches that try to both shock and entertain their groups, while in Poland, tourists arrive at Auschwitz on buses with "Kraków Tours" painted on the side, and pose for pictures at the entrance gate, below the notorious sign reading "Arbeit Macht Frei" (work makes you free). Auschwitz was once the largest of the Nazi concentration camps, where 1.1 million people were murdered. But sixty years have passed since the world learned of the genocide that took place there, and now the documentary's camera captures icy, poetic shots of beautiful young girls jogging around the camp, little boys playing soccer nearby, and a woman hanging up her laundry to dry right next to its fence. Earth that was stained with the blood of over a million people is now casually trod on every day. The truth is, survivors agree, if you did not live through the Holocaust, you will never know their fear, and never fully understand the horrors. "I try to paint a picture that will stir them up, get them thinking," a survivor who serves as a tour guide says, "but I never expect the audience to understand what it was like." See also List of Holocaust memorials and museums Holocaust Memorial Days Other Holocaust Documentaries: Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die Chaim Rumkowski and the Jews of Lodz Luboml Shadows of Memory The Jewess and the Captain Paradise Camp References External links The Jewish Channel's review Icarus Films write up 2003 films Documentary films about the Holocaust Holocaust studies 2000s English-language films
The Holocaust Experience
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The World Jewish Congress lawsuit against Swiss banks was launched in 1995 to retrieve deposits made into the three largest Swiss banks (UBS, Credit Suisse and Swiss Bank Corporation) by victims of Nazi persecution during and prior to World War II. WJC negotiations were initiated with the Government of Switzerland and Swiss banks, and later expanded to cover Swiss insurance companies, over burdensome proof-of-ownership requirements for accounts and insurance policies. Strong support from both federal and state United States politicians and officials, threats of sanctions against the three Swiss banks, as well as leaked documents from a bank guard pressured a settlement of the suit in 1998 in a U.S. court for multiple classes of people affected by government and banking practices. The Swiss government itself was not a signatory to the deal. As of early 2020, US$1.29 billion has been disbursed to approximately 458,400 claimants. While lauded by many in the United States as a significant legal milestone for Holocaust justice, the settlement was controversial in Switzerland. Some commentators found it problematic that the amount of funds eventually disbursed significantly exceeded what was ultimately found in Swiss banks (as determined by the Volcker Commission) and that the final settlement was not based on an exact amount owed, but on a compromise between the World Jewish Congress and Swiss financial institutions amid the backdrop of the threat of U.S. sanctions against Switzerland. Others criticized the fact that, as per the terms of the settlements, the Swiss banks were also deemed financially accountable for profiting from the denial of entry of some Jews into Switzerland and for forced labor performed for the benefit of any Swiss corporation (not only banks) by Jewish refugees admitted during World War II, when decisions surrounding refugee policy and forced labor were never in the banks’ purview. The Swiss government did not participate in the settlement. Historical background Due to Switzerland’s declared military neutrality in World War II, Swiss banks had been a safe haven for Jewish assets before and during the war. The Holocaust saw the genocide of approximately six million Jews, which included individuals who had deposited their funds into Swiss banks. Since the end of World War II, some individual heirs to depositors who were murdered reported difficulties in retrieving the funds because Swiss banks had asked for death certificates of the original depositors. However, the Nazis did not issue death certificates to those they murdered. Furthermore, some heirs to victims alleged that Swiss banks stonewalled them and deliberately misled them about the existence of an account. Swiss banking secrecy laws prevented bankers from answering questions about account holders to individuals they deemed had no evidence that they were connected to the original depositor. Any revealing of information could have led to a fine or imprisonment of the respective banker under the 1934 Swiss Federal Act on Banks. Switzerland settles World War II claims: the 1946 Washington Agreement In 1946, Switzerland and the Western allies signed the Washington Agreement in Washington, DC. Switzerland
World Jewish Congress lawsuit against Swiss banks