Yivo Opens Exhibit of Pictures Showing Nazi Cruelty in Warsaw Ghetto

A dramatic and moving exhibit of pictures and documents depicting the cruelty in the Nazi occupation of the Warsaw Ghetto and the resistance of the Jews in the uprising, went on display yesterday at the national headquarters here of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

Speaking at the special ceremonies, Senator Jacob K. Javits of New York emphasized that the historic significance of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising transcended “the bounds of a single heroic act,” adding that “it has become a milestone in Jewish history and in the annals of recorded heroism.”

At the same time, Philip M. Klutznick, former ranking member of the United States delegation to the United Nations and general chairman of the Sponsors Committee of the exhibition, who presided, asserted that the exhibit “can only hallow the memory of those glorious martyrs who went to their eternal reward with the conviction in their hearts that the Jew is a man of honor and that the Jewish people is an eternal one.”

Mr. Klutznick emphasized that the exhibit’s only purpose was to “graphically display this magnificent posture so that their memory will ever burn brightly in the souls of future generations.” He cited the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, stressing that the Institute had its wellsprings in Poland and was developed by “the men who ultimately stood up against the Nazi tyrant.” He pointed out that “the YIVO archives and library represent the lifeblood of a generation of Jewish scholars and students whose total identification is with the cultural life of their people.”

YIVO is the only secular Jewish research institute in the world outside of Israel. Founded in Vilna in 1925–and subsequently removed to New York, in 1940, to escape the German holocaust–YIVO is dedicated to the scholarly exploration of all phases of Jewish life: Historical, sociological, economic, literary and linguistic.