Due to an overwhelming response, the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust today announced that Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away., the most comprehensive Holocaust exhibition about Auschwitz ever presented in North America, will be extended until August 30, 2020.
The Museum of Jewish Heritage
Photo Credit: Website
Since today is the first day of Hanukkah, I thought it was appropriate to tell you about this. As we celebrate the Festival of Lights we should never forget any aspect of our Jewish history
Produced by the international exhibition firm Musealia and the Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum in Poland, the groundbreaking exhibition is the largest ever on Auschwitz with more than 700 original objects and 400 photographs. The extension responds to the record number of visitors the exhibition drew to the Museum since opening in May. More than 106,000 people from across the country and globe have visited the exhibition, including more than 36,000 students, and approximately 12,000 students are scheduled to visit before the end of 2019. Tickets are available at www.mjhnyc.org. “The number of adults and school visitors drawn to Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. has been incredible. This exhibition greets its visitors with a clear warning to be vigilant – to not allow this history to repeat and to never presume that it won’t,” notes Bruce C. Ratner, Chairman of the Museum’s Board of Trustees.
Holocaust Shofar
The Holocaust Shofar
Photo Credit: Website
“In recent years and recent months even, we have seen a surge in antisemitic rhetoric, hate crimes, and a weaponized nationalism both here in the United States and abroad. We are extending this exhibition at our Museum because it offers clear, moral lessons that resonate powerfully today and from which visitors want to learn.” “It has been a great honor to preside over the Museum as it presents this astounding exhibition and to witness it move so many of our visitors as deeply as it has moved me,” says Jack Kliger, the Museum’s President and CEO. “Most remarkable, this exhibition is dynamic. Already large in scope, it continues to acquire new artifacts over the course of its life, such as the shofar clandestinely used in Auschwitz that we unveiled last month ahead of Rosh Hashanah.” “We have been profoundly overwhelmed by the phenomenal visitor response in New York—not only by the numbers themselves, but especially by the time visitors spend in the exhibition—on average two hours—and the care, attention and respect they show for this story.
This historic artifact, a shofar which is a ram’s horn that is made into a special wind instrument used during Jewish High Holiday religious services and that was hidden and clandestinely used in the Auschwitz concentration camp. The artifact was blown in Auschwitz 75 years ago and has never before been on display anywhere. It joined the more than 700 original objects and 400 photographs in this groundbreaking exhibition. This shofar will bring the exhibit’s visitors the sound of spiritual resistance and human dignity, and a story and echo we very much need to hear today. Chaskel Tydor, an Auschwitz and Buchenwald survivor, passed the shofar down to his daughter, Professor Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz. She is Director of The Arnold and Leona Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research and Professor in the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. “My modest five-foot-two father was a giant of a man who, because of his position as work dispatcher, managed to save hundreds of lives, and possibly more, in Auschwitz III-Monowitz during his years in Nazi camps,” said Prof. Baumel-Schwartz. “The shofar was a symbol of his powerful belief which he never lost throughout his years in Buchenwald and Auschwitz, and his spiritual resistance. He always looked forward, never backward. He helped, encouraged and supported everyone he could, giving them hope for the future.” The shofar was ostensibly unavailable in any Nazi concentration camp, and possession of a religious artifact could be punished by death.
That did not deter a group of observant Jews in the Auschwitz III-Monowitz camp from trying to obtain one to use during High Holiday prayer services. Tydor was one of the prisoners responsible for organizing the camp’s work details; and during Rosh Hashanah, he arranged for many of his comrades to be transferred to a work detail that was far removed from the center of the camp, where the sound of the shofar could be heard without attracting undue attention. He could not attend the clandestine service they were planning as he had to remain at his position or risk arousing suspicion. He later told his daughter, “When I approached the Jewish prisoner who was supposed to have the shofar, he denied it. He was probably afraid to tell anyone as having it in his possession meant death.” Tydor only saw the shofar four months later, in late January 1945, as he and thousands of other prisoners were forced by the SS guards to set out from Auschwitz on the infamous Death March. An emaciated prisoner approached him, handed him an object wrapped in a rag, and said, “Take it… I’m too sick to survive. Maybe you will make it. Take the shofar. Show them that we had a shofar in Auschwitz,” Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz. recalled her father saying.
Tydor survived the Death March through the snow to the town of Gleiwitz, which contained sub-camps of Auschwitz. From there, the shofar accompanied him to Buchenwald. Realizing that they were losing the war, the Nazi administrators of the camp became more lax, leaving much of the inner organization to the prisoners. Consequently, it was possible for Tydor to hide the shofar in the small rag bag he carried, with his tin cup and spoon. It remained with him until he was liberated on April 11, 1945 by the U.S. Army. After liberation, Tydor was able to forge a new life. On Rosh Hashanah 1945, he was on a boat to Palestine. In view of the Carmel mountain range, Tydor blew the shofar for a group of young survivors—many, like him, from Auschwitz. They were about to reach the Promised Land. Chaskel Tydor passed away in 1993. He is survived by three children, nine grandchildren, numerous great-grandchildren, and a great-great-grandson (named after him).
A Courageous Step
Train car that took Jews to Auschwitz
Photo Credit: Website
Deciding to visit this exhibition is a courageous step. It means confronting oneself with a traumatic, complex and challenging past. And more importantly, it helps us understand more critically our own present,” says Luis Ferreiro, Director of Musealia and the exhibition project. “I don’t think that there is a more important exhibition presented in New York at the moment. This one about Auschwitz explores the essence of mankind, analyzes the limits of what is human, and asks important questions about our contemporary responsibility. I am glad people will be able to see it there longer,” says Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. traces the development of Nazi ideology and tells the transformation of Auschwitz from an ordinary Polish town known as Oświęcim to the largest German Nazi concentration camp and the most significant site of the Holocaust— at which camp 1 million Jews, and tens of thousands of others, were murdered. Victims included Polish political prisoners, Sinti and Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and those the Nazis deemed “homosexual,” “disabled,” “criminal,” “inferior,” or adversarial in countless other ways.
Uniform worn by Marian Kostuch, held as a Polish political prisoner. Kostuch was born on June 8, 1922, in Bieżanów. His occupation was listed in camp records as “tanner.” © Musealia
The exhibition tells not only the story of their persecution and murder, but also the myriad ways ordinary people responded to the unfolding genocide, including inspiring stories of resistance, resilience, courage, and altruism. In addition, the exhibition contains artifacts that depict the world of the perpetrators—SS men who created and operated the largest of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camps. With more than 700 objects and 400 photographs, mainly from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, the New York presentation of the exhibition allows visitors to experience artifacts from more than 20 international museums and institutions on view for the first time in the North America, including hundreds of personal items—such as suitcases, eyeglasses, and shoes—that belonged to survivors and victims of Auschwitz.
Anne Frank
The exhibition also features 10 artifacts on loan from the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, which include the spilled, dried beans Anne wrote about in her diary and that were later discovered lodged between the cracks of stairs in the home where she hid from the German Nazis. The beans have never been displayed anywhere before. Most recently, the Museum announced the exhibition’s incorporation of a shofar (a ram’s horn that is made into a special wind instrument used during Jewish High Holiday services) that was hidden and clandestinely blown in the Auschwitz. The Museum of Jewish Heritage has incorporated into the exhibition nearly 100 rare artifacts from its collection that relay the experience of survivors and liberators who found refuge in the greater New York area. Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. at the Museum of Jewish Heritage
