The life and actions of Oskar Schindler, the German war profiteer whose change of heart saved more than 1,000 of his Jewish workers from the Nazi death camps, will be depicted in an exhibit running from Sunday, April 19 through May 1 at Temple Israel in Great Neck.
Another exhibit, “Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race,” began April 5 at the Charles B. Wang Center at Stony Brook University and will be on display through June 12.
Both displays are among the traveling exhibits of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Both exhibits are free and are timed to coincide with Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is being marked on Tuesday.
“This is the first two that we have had two traveling exhibits on Long Island at the same time,” said Arthur Berger, a senior adviser at the museum.
The Stony Brook exhibit, which recently appeared at the United Nations, includes photographs of both the victims of Nazi medical experiments and of the medical professionals — including pediatricians and psychiatrists — who sought to kill the handicapped in order to create a stronger German gene pool.
The Schindler exhibit stresses that people had a choice during the Nazi period — remain bystanders and let it all happen or do something. Schindler, by his decision to protect the Jews who worked in his factories, made a difference not only for them but also for generations to come, Berger noted.
In 1962, Yad Vashem awarded Schindler the title, “Righteous Among the Nations.”
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