Brooklyn's first Holocaust museum isn't about death. It's about Jewish religious life.

One generation from now, it may be impossible to hear firsthand stories of the Holocaust.



A rendering for a new Holocaust museum, in Brooklyn. Credit: Layman Designs

PRI's The World
August 15, 2016 · 2:30 PM EDT
By Daniel A. Gross

Seventy-one years after the end of World War II, there's a growing urgency to preserve the stories of survivors. A new museum in Brooklyn is trying to do just that.

But the Amud Aish Memorial Museum is a bit different than other Holocaust museums, according to Rabbi Dovid Reidel, the museum's director of research. He says Amud Aish focuses less on stories of death, and more on stories of Jewish religious life.

“Many of the other museums have been focusing on the perpetrators,” says Reidel. “What the Nazis did. The murderers, the methods of murder.”

“To us, of greater importance is not focusing on the evil — though it's important to remember and not to forget — but it's to focus on the victims and their perspectives.”

http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-08-15/brooklyns-first-holocaust-museum-isnt-about-death-its-about-jewish-religious-life

4:57 audio at link.

http://www.kfhec.org/images/pdf/amud_aish_brochure.pdf