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Mercer County
Community College will host a traveling exhibit that speaks to the
resilience of the human spirit and the lessons to be learned from
the Holocaust. "Perspectives on the Holocaust: Women's and
Children's Art and Stories" comes to the MCCC Gallery Oct.
16-Nov. 15. This moving exhibit is a cooperative project between
the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education, Kidsbridge Children's
Museum in Trenton, NJ, and the Mercer County Holocaust/Genocide
Resource Center. The exhibit chronicles the histories of 15 female
Holocaust survivors in poster-size panels, as well as art created
by child survivors. Works by artists and survivors Ella Libermann-Shiber
and Halina Olomucki will also be on display. Olomucki created a
series of portraits of her fellow female prisoners, while Libermann-Shiber
focused on the daily atrocities of the war. (Artwork provided courtesy
of ORT.) An Open House for the community will be held Sunday, Oct.
14 at 3 p.m. To start the Open House, Judith Sherman, a survivor
of Ravensbruck Concentration Camp, will tell her story, and present
drawings and poetry. The Gallery is located on MCCC's West
Windsor campus, 1200 Old Trenton Road, Communications Building,
second floor.
"Her Story,"
the women's portion of this self-guided exhibit, presents the stories
and photos of 15 female Holocaust survivors living in the greater
Cincinnati area. They are from a dozen countries and tell a variety
of survivor experiences. With each panel displaying a heading such
as patience, courage, responsibility, and perseverance, the viewer
gains an appreciation of what it took for these women to survive:
fighting in the resistance, living in hiding or with false identities,
and enduring concentration camps. Collectively the stories of sisters,
daughters, mothers, wives and friends are a celebration of the women's
strength and valor. By the final panel, viewers are challenged to
transform their own impressions into positive action.
The second part
of the exhibit, entitled "From the Children, for the Children:
Art of the Holocaust," features a collection of children's
artwork and poetry from the Holocaust. In drawings and poems, the
children speak from their hearts about their experiences of captivity,
humiliation, loss, isolation, hunger, risk and their longings for
freedom.
Observes exhibit
coordinator Professor Saul Goldwasser, director of the county's
Holocaust Resource Center, which is located on the MCCC campus,
there continue to be genocides and those who deny genocides in the
world today. "The lessons that can be learned by studying the
Holocaust, particularly through the evocative art and powerful stories
of survivors, serve to keep the atrocities of the present day at
the forefront of people's consciousness. Past history can become
living history for the young, and reinforces that atrocities should
not be repeated anew for each generation," Goldwasser said.
"Events in Rwanda and Darfur are more keenly felt and understood
against the backdrop of the Holocaust."
Adds Holocaust
survivor Dr. Vera Goodkin, a member of the N.J. Holocaust Commission,
"It is our sacred duty to speak for those who perished and,
above all, to try to teach love, acceptance and tolerance to the
young through lessons of the Holocaust. Our goal is to stem the
ever rising tide of hatred everywhere in the world, to stop present
day genocides, and to prevent future genocides."
Gallery hours
are: Tuesdays, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.; Wednesdays,
9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; and Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Those interested
in scheduling a group or class trip should email holocaus@doe.state.nj.us.
For more information, call (609) 570-3355.
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