I was away...

Moonrise over Lake Winnipesaukee

Apologies for the absence of new posts. I was away in New Hampshire for a few days and am terribly occupied with two new exhibitions, which will open at the Museum this fall: Women of Letters: Irène Némerovsky and Suite Française, which has been the subject of several posts, and Holocaust by Bullets, about Father Patrick Desbois and his search for mass graves in Ukraine. I will write more about this fascinating subject in the future. I am off to Ireland next week for a walking trip in Cork. Perhaps I can post some photos along the way....

Némirovsky Exhibition

Sarah Griswold, Exhibitions Project Manager, with the famous valise

The artifacts for our exhibition, Woman of Letters: Irène Némirovsky and Suite Française arrived from France recently, the first time any of them (with the exception of the manuscript of Suite Française) has ever been out of France. You can imagine our excitement in unpacking the crates and examining the powerful objects, which will help us to tell this remarkable story. In the photo above, you can see the valise which held the manuscript of Suite Française, which can be seen below.


Suite Française Manuscript (Courtesy of IMEC)


Irène's Identity Card (Courtesy of IMEC)

Documentary Film

I have just returned from ten days in Germany, where I was working on a documentary film about the search for and prosecution of Nazi war criminals (working Title: Elusive Justice). I have been working with Jonathan Silvers, the film's director, for the past year or so and joined him and the crew (including the very talented cameraman, Bob Caccamise) in Berlin; from there, we traveled to Cologne, Krefeld, and Frankfurt.


Bobby Caccamise, Neal Robin, and Jonathan Silvers in the Courthouse in Cologne

In Berlin, we filmed at the former and current sites of the Berlin Document Center. We interviewed Henry Leide, an expert on East German prosecutions of Nazi war criminals, and Niklas Frank, the son of Hans Frank.

In Cologne, we interviewed Judge Fassbender, who presided over the Kurt Lischka trial, and Peter Finkelgruen, who carried on an eleven-year quest to see Anton Malloth, the murderer of his grandfather, brought to justice.


Judge Fassbender and Petra Krischok, our local producer


Peter Finkelgruen

In Krefeld, we interviewed Ralph Klein, an anti-fascist activist, who carreid out demonstrations two years ago against one Horst Richter, who had been convicted of war crimes, in absentia, by an Italian court and who lives in Germany, without fear, apparently, of the German justice system. We filmed outside of Richter's home, and his wife came out to speak with us, providing a spontaneous and dramatic interview.


Ralph Klein in Krefeld

In Frankfurt, we interviewed Gerhard Wiese, who had been a prosecutor in the Frankurt Auschwitz trial, and is perhaps the only survivng figure from the trial. Sitting in the courtroom, where the trial commenced, Wiese provided details of and reflections about this most important proceeding.


Bobby Caccamise, our cameraman


Gerhard Wiese, prosecutor in the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial

This film will tell a crucially important story about the pursuit of justice and the failures and successes of that pursuit. I am very excited to be working on it.

Dr. Ruth

Dr. Ruth hoisted aloft at her party

Last night, the Museum was the venue for a remarkable event -- our Trustee, Dr. Ruth Westheimer's 80th birthday party. Ruth and her family hosted their 350+ guests to a night to remember. It was was described by one veteran party-goer as "the best celebration ever."

Dr. Ruth wore a beautiful tangerine-colored silk brocade jacket with silk pants. Surrounded by her beautiful family and all of her friends, she danced the night away to Greg Wall, who played a variety of rock-n-roll, klezmer, and Israeli tunes that inspired festive dancing all night long. From the first hora to the last jazz riff, the events hall practically vibrated with revelers. Fireworks over the Statue of Liberty provided the veritable icing on the cake, created by David Bouley (the cake, not the fireworks), and Ruth and her family were as joyful and loving as you could imagine. In lieu of gifts, Ruth’s guests were asked to make contributions to the Ruth Westheimer Fund for Holocaust Education in memory of Fred Westheimer. More than $60,000 was raised to further the educational mission of the Museum. Others who celebrated with Dr. Ruth include Bob Morgenthau, Manhattan DA and Ruth’s boss at the Museum, Christie Hefner, Debbie Friedman, and the New York City Sports Commissioner Ken Podziba representing Mayor Bloomberg, who had a plaque made for Ruth that declares “The world is a better place with you in it.”

I couldn’t agree more.

I was honored to be asked to deliver some remarks. Here they are (note: for full effect, they should be read aloud with a certain elocution):

It is difficult to talk about Dr. Ruth without thinking about a certain subject, but I promised myself that I would avoid the cliché, that I would try get through my remarks this evening without mentioning “you know what.”

Well, given that restriction, what can you say about Ruth?

• What can you say about this extremely short person who has a giant heart?
• What can you say about this extravagant personality who is modest in so many ways?
• What can you say about this extrovert, who is thoughtful, and deliberative, and even very private?
• What can you say about this extraordinary achiever who takes time and care to speak to everyone?
• What can you say about this exemplar of grandmotherly qualities whose expertise on television risks expurgation by the FCC?
• What can you say about this exile who has found a home in the hearts of so many?


I, for one, can simply say, I love Ruth. I love her for her big and kind and generous heart; for her commitment to important causes (like ours); for the priorities that order her life; for the example she makes for us all about living meaningfully. She is one of my heroes, and I couldn’t be prouder to call her my friend or happier that she chose to celebrate her birthday here in our home. Thank you, Ruth, and Happy Birthday.

(Photo by Melanie Einzig)

Imre Hecht

Imre and Vera Hecht

We lost a good friend recently. Imre Hecht died at 98, only a short time after his beloved wife Vera. I delivered these remarks at Imre's funeral on May 4th:

I didn’t meet Imre Hecht until he was 90 years old. Now if you first meet someone only after they have lived nine decades, you might expect to encounter a person of significantly diminished capacity. You might expect them to be frail. You might expect their cognitive acuity to be compromised. You might expect them to be focused on themselves and on their end. In short, you might expect to encounter a person who had used up their life.

Now I knew no younger Imre to compare, but the Imre at 90, whom I met, was not a man who had used up his life. He was a man who was squarely in the middle of it. Both feet. Full speed. Deeply engaged. He was the only 90 year old, whom I knew who sent me emails, and the only person of any age whose emails contained such an unconventional, yet effective approach to the English language.

I must assume that the Imre I met at 90 was operating at some diminished energy, which leads me to marvel at what Imre must have been like at 30, when he was making movies for MGM in Budapest, before the war, the war that destroyed his beloved homeland and saw the murder of hundreds of thousands of his people. I wonder what he was like at 40, when he met and, within three days, married his beloved Vera, a story that I heard just last week during the memorial service that Imre planned for Vera at the Museum, and which his last illness kept him from attending.

He was a creative personality and he gave expression to his feelings and his musings in dramatic and memorable ways. Imre was often frustrated with us at the Museum; he had an endless series of suggestions for exhibitions and improvements and marketing strategies. On one visit I made to his apartment, Imre gave me a well thought out plan, including sketches, for an entire new gallery at the Museum. In the end, though he loved who we were as an institution, and he knew that we were there to tell his story.

The last time I saw him, in March in Sarasota, he looked marvelous. Tan and fit. He looked like Picasso with his straw hat and lively eyes. We talked about the memorial service for Vera, and he talked with Izabela about what he wanted to do, where he wanted to travel – Paris, Budapest.


Imre and Vera Hecht

If Imre Hecht had not been born, he would have had to be invented. The world needed a man like Imre -- not because he won great victories for humankind and not because he left behind enduring evidence of prodigious talent. No, Imre’s hold on all of was his unequaled love for life. He thirsted to experience the adventure that life on earth offers, and he was equipped to take it all in.

Holocaust Remembrance Day

We mark this day in a number of meaningful ways at the Museum. One of the most important elements is bringing survivors to our galleries to talk with students and other visitors. These men and women share their wisdom, strength, and life lessons freely with the understanding that their stories will not be forgotten. As more than one student has told us, reading about the Holocaust cannot compare with talking to a survivor.

Some of our Museum family are artifact donors as well as survivors. When you imagine what men and women had to endure in the camps and on death marches, it is nearly impossible to envision how a birthday card or a child’s toy or eyeglasses could stand as the object that is a metaphor for one’s life. In any other situation these objects might be thrown in a box or worse, thrown away. But in our Museum they illustrate the humanity that would not be extinguished, the hope that would not fade, and the history that cannot be forgotten.

As our friends age a little more each day, we are fortunate that many have taken pen to paper and written their memoirs. While there are common threads that weave in and out of these accounts, I never fail to be amazed at the strength of character, the depth of love, or the sheer number of friends and loved ones who were taken away, but who live on in these books. Our Pickman Museum Shop offers a wealth of memoirs and I hope you will take the time to read through some.

On Friday morning the staff will participate in an intimate candlelighting ceremony. We do this before the Museum opens, without the glare of media. It is a chance to rededicate ourselves to the work of the Museum in our safe space. Six High School Apprentices (interns) are paired with six survivors. Each pair reads a statement and lights a candle. These statements were written by Norbert Friedman, a survivor and long-time member of the Museum family, now living in Florida. When we read these statements together it is as if Norbert is with us in the lobby. Norbert’s words are for anyone to use in a Holocaust commemoration.

CANDLE 1: In memory of the one-and-a-half-million innocent children whose lives were extinguished in the cruelest way, a candle is lit.

CANDLE 2: In memory of parents whose indescribable anguish of separation from their children was exceeded only by the torment of witnessing their murder, a candle is lit.

CANDLE 3: In memory of those saintly sages whose lives were dedicated to the teaching of Torah, and who went to their death with the cry of Sh’ma Yisrael on their lips, a candle is lit.

CANDLE 4: In memory of all the Righteous Among the Nations who risked their lives to save and protect their Jewish brothers and sisters, a candle is lit.

CANDLE 5: In memory of all the brave souls who perished offering physical and spiritual resistance, not in expectation of conquest, but for the honor and glory of the Jewish People, a candle is lit.

CANDLE 6: In memory of all those men, women, and children who have no one else to remember them or say kaddish for them, whose very names have been erased, but whose memory lives on in our hearts and in our thoughts, for them, a candle is lit.

"To Return to the Land…”

Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan, 1943

As we approached the 60th anniversary of Israel’s statehood, the Museum staff thought about how to mark this important anniversary. We could think of no better way to honor the birth of the State of Israel than by showing the powerful images of its struggle and its triumphs. "To Return to the Land…” Paul Goldman’s Photographs of the Birth of Israel does just that through Goldman’s beautifully composed and intimate work. The New York Sun called the exhibition “not-to-be-missed.”

Hungarian-born photojournalist Paul Goldman fled to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1940, where he chronicled the events leading up to the foundation of the State of Israel. Goldman’s photos of life before statehood, during the War of Independence, and the ingathering of dispersed Jews are complemented by rich memories of individuals who lived through those same events. Images and words together tell stories of the birth of Israel through the lenses of photographic and human memory. From Tel Aviv streetscapes to the bombing of the King David Hotel, from street vendors to Prime Ministers; both the extraordinary and every-day document this monumental story.

Goldman, born in 1900, fled Budapest in 1940 to escape the spreading threat of Nazism. He worked as a freelance photographer for local newspapers and international news services during the 1940s and 1950s. His role as a member of the British Army, and later as a confidant to important Israeli leaders, provided him with privileged access and a front-row view to Israel’s growing pains. Unfortunately, Goldman’s eyesight failed him in the early 1960s — he died penniless at the age of 86 in Israel. Sadly, he never was able to see Israel’s physical beauty beyond her adolescence.


Jewish State, Haifa, October 1947

The exhibition includes more than 40 images culled from a collection of negatives that lived in a shoebox until they were rediscovered in recent years. While Goldman was one of only a few photojournalists working in the British Mandate of Palestine in the 1940s, he remains largely unknown, mostly because of the practice at the time of not including photo credits in newspapers. The photos are on loan to the Museum from the collection of Spencer M. Partrich. After its run at the Museum (it closes on May 19th), "To Return to the Land..." will travel to the Oregon Jewish Museum in June.

(Photos by Paul Goldman. From the collection of Spencer M. Partrich/Photo Art Israel)