Exhibit of Auschwitz Documents and Artifacts to Tour the U.S. Under Historic Accord Between UJA and

An exhibition of Auschwitz documents and artifacts that is having its initial showing here as part of a nationwide tour has been made possible by an historic agreement between the United Jewish Appeal and the Polish People’s Republic, it was announced by UJA Board chairman Alex Grass.

The tour, Grass told the participants at the opening of the exhibition last week, was arranged “so that the horrible blot of the Holocaust on history will be remembered for our children and grandchildren.” The agreement between Poland and the UJA, he said, provides that items from the Auschwitz State Museum be made available for two years for the U.S. tour. The exhibition was previously on display at the United Nations last winter where it was seen by an estimated 70,000 people.

The idea of securing Holocaust photographs, documents and artifacts for display in the U.S. developed during a visit Grass made to the Auschwitz State Museum. He said. “It was the most profound and moving experience I have ever had. There at Auschwitz, I was determined that first hand knowledge of what occurred should be brought to the American Jewish community and to Americans in general. In particular, I wanted to enlighten and educate those too young to remember.”

Grass noted that 90 percent of American Jews have never visited Yad Vashem in Jerusalem or other Holocaust memorials and that an even higher percentage of non-Jews had never seen the shocking evidence of the Holocaust, which cost the lives of six million Jews.

Auschwitz, the largest Nazi death camp, is a symbol of Nazi barbarism in which 2,000 people were gassed each day, their bodies being burned in four crematoria which operated, without stop 24 hours per day.

EXHIBITION DATES FOR OTHER CITIES

The exhibition, “Auschwitz: A Crime Against Humanity,” opened September 8 at the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and will be on display until October 8. The UJA announced that the exhibition will be on display at the Jewish Community Center in Harrisburg, Pa. from October 27 through November 14.

Other confirmed dates and cities are, the UJA said, Los Angeles, January; Seattle, March; Pittsburgh, September; Boston, October; Miami, November, all in 1987; and Atlanta, January 1988.

The people attending the opening exhibition here included a few of the individuals who took part in the agreement by which the UJA borrowed the material from the Auschwitz State Museum. Many visitors were deeply moved, not only by the photographs, quotations from Hitler, Himmler and others on the plan to kill all the Jews in Europe, but also by the personal effects of the victims, such as the tattered suitcases, shoes and clothing.

THEME SOUNDED AT OPENING EXHIBITION

The theme of remembrance of the Holocaust, dissemination of knowledge that it existed, and prevention of any attempts to deny the reality that the Holocaust had happened, was sounded by most speakers.

Zdzislaw Ludwiczak, the Polish Charge d’Affaires, said, “The horrors of Auschwitz must never be forgotten. Never again should such a policy of genocide be allowed to be pursued.” He said that remembering the victims of the Holocaust is a basic tenet of Polish foreign policy. He cited Polish suffering at the hands of the Nazis and said the exhibition was “of great moral significance.”

Teresa Swiebocka, curator and author of the exhibition who came from Poland for the opening, spoke of the widespread destruction during World War II and said, “The most tragic fate was of the European Jews.” The Nazi plan she said, was to eliminate all Jews, Poles and other Slavs.

Tsuriel Raphael, Second Secretary of the Israel Embassy, and Sanford Lefcoe, the Tidewater Jewish Federation president, said the significance of the exhibition was shown again in the murder of innocent Jews on September 6 in a synagogue in Istanbul, Turkey.

Raphael said, “Auschwitz is a symbol of anti-Semitism, which engulfs people of all nations and faiths.” He said Israel will help keep the memory of Auschwitz alive and continue to seek out butchers who killed innocent Jews.

Richard Arenstein, Special Assistant to Governor Gerald Baliles of Virginia, reiterated the Governor’s support for Israel.

Esther Goldman, an Auschwitz survivor who lives here, lit six candles, each representing one million innocent Jewish victims. “Each of you, indirectly shared a glimpse of my reality,” she said. “It is my hope that the exhibition will help illuminate what happened, so that it will never happen again. Even though others died in Auschwitz, it was the headquarters of the ‘final solution’. Hitler’s plan to kill the Jews. We resist today by leading good Jewish lives and by raising Jewish children and by telling the truth about Auschwitz.”