Scissors confiscated from prisoners upon their arrival at the Auschwitz concentration camp. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Państwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau
Six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. The number is staggering. It is the equivalent of almost seven Ottawas. How can we represent the magnitude of this crime without reducing the victims to mere numbers? How can we show, as Holocaust survivor Abel Herzberg said so well, that “There were not six million Jews murdered; there was one murder, six million times”? How do we convey that these were real people with real lives and families. In this presentation, Dr. Robert Ehrenreich will discuss how personal items can turn the huge numbers of victims back into individuals and return their humanity, based on three case-studies: personal items discovered near shooting pits in Ukraine; damaged photographs from Poland; and a piece of mica from the Theresienstadt Glimmerwerke (mica works).
Speaker
Dr. Robert M. Ehrenreich, Director, National Academic Programs, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
This program is made possible by the Campus Outreach Lecture Program of the United States Holocaust Museum's Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, supported by the Anne and Harry Chinitz Campus Outreach Lecture Fund.