A stark reminder of ‘hate left unchecked’




NEVER FORGET—Above, Holocaust survivors David Lenga, left, and Joe Alexander talk to the media during a news conference Nov. 10 to announce an upcoming exhibit at the Reagan Library titled “Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away.” Above right, guests listen as the Holocaust survivors share their experiences at the news conference. The exhibition will be at the Simi Valley library starting March 2023. Photos by MICHAEL COONS/Acorn Newspapers

NEVER FORGET—Above, Holocaust survivors David Lenga, left, and Joe Alexander talk to the media during a news conference Nov. 10 to announce an upcoming exhibit at the Reagan Library titled “Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away.” Above right, guests listen as the Holocaust survivors share their experiences at the news conference. The exhibition will be at the Simi Valley library starting March 2023. Photos by MICHAEL COONS/Acorn Newspapers

The World War II-era railway freight car sitting in the Reagan Library’s front courtyard is a symbol of catastrophic human tragedy.

Crammed inside this car, and others like it, were Jews being delivered like cattle to the slaughterhouse. Millions of men, women and children were transported to their deaths at German concentration camps in this manner, a horror that Rabbi Nolan Lebovitz of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino can barely begin to comprehend.

Lebovitz, the grandson of four Holocaust survivors, lost over 200 members of his family. They were murdered, he said, “in the inferno of hate that was Nazi Europe.”

“When we look at a box car like this, we remember the consequences of hate left unchecked,” he said.

The authentic German National Railway freight car is one of the key artifacts that will be on display when “Auschwitz: Not Long Ago. Not Far Away” makes its West Coast premiere March 24, 2023 at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. The show will feature more than 700 original artifacts and over 400 photographs from over 20 institutions and museums from around the world.

A DARK TIME IN HISTORY—Reagan Library staff members and guests line the road to observe the Nov. 10 arrival of a German-made World War II-era freight car that took prisoners to concentration camps. MICHAEL COONS/Acorn Newspapers

A DARK TIME IN HISTORY—Reagan Library staff members and guests line the road to observe the Nov. 10 arrival of a German-made World War II-era freight car that took prisoners to concentration camps. MICHAEL COONS/Acorn Newspapers

The announcement of the exhibit on Nov. 10, which Lebovitz and other Jewish leaders attended, coincided with the 84th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass.”

On Nov. 9 and 10, 1938, Nazis in Germany torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses, and murdered close to 100 Jews. Another 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps.

The exhibit—created by the Spanish company Musealia together with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland— serves as a stark reminder of the horrors of antisemitism.

“The exhibition commemorates not only the immense loss during one of the darkest chapters in history, but also the necessary effort to keep the memory of the millions lost alive,” said John Heubusch, executive director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.

 

 

The Simi Valley Police Department and nearly 50 motorcycle riders with the Patriot Guard and the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association escorted the freight car, which was hauled by a large truck, into the city and to the Reagan Library. A crane was used to place the freight car onto the library’s courtyard.

With antisemitism dominating the national conservation, news about the show is particularly timely.

At the exhibit announcement event, Holocaust survivors David Lenga and Joe Alexander discussed their harrowing escape from concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and implored people to never forget. To do that, education is a must, they said.

“Survivors like myself need to know that our lives have meaning, and that our community deeply cares about what becomes of us, that our suffering will never be forgotten,” Lenga said.

Lebovitz cannot look at the rail car and think of the many relatives he lost.

“I believe that my grandmothers, both of whom were inmates at Auschwitz concentration camp, might have ridden in box cars exactly like this one. They might have ridden in this exact box car,” Lebovitz said.

Lebovitz said that during this period of darkness, “the final solution was carried out by ordinary people who volunteered to exterminate my people, my family.

“Ordinary people, neighbors, participated or fell silent, complicit in the mass murderous behavior that dominated the continent,” he said. “From my grandparents’ perspective, they felt the entire world had turned toward evil.”

That eventually changed, Lebovitz said, when young men and women from the Allied forces liberated the prisoners.

But the scourge of antisemitism persists, he said, and the threat is building.

“Now with the rise of antisemitism across this nation and across this world—when members of our own Congress feel comfortable spewing hate against Jews and the Jewish state—an exhibit like this has become all the more crucial,” Lebovitz said.

As Holocaust survivors are passing away, the rabbi said it’s imperative to continue telling their stories and continue “speaking loudly and clearly with one voice denouncing antisemitism and all forms of hate.”

Hundreds of personal items such as suitcases, eyeglasses and shoes that belonged to survivors and victims of Auschwitz will be on display during the exhibit.

Other artifacts include concrete posts and fragments of original prisoners’ barracks from Auschwitz; a desk and other possessions of the first and the longest-serving Auschwitz commandant, Rudolf Höss; and a gas mask used by the SS, the elite guard of the Nazi Party.

Exhibit curators had a clear goal: to explain how a place like Auschwitz came into being, and to let it serve as a reminder that it’s everyone’s responsibility to keep such evil from ever resurfacing.

“We hope that every visitor who walks through this exhibition will understand their responsibility, not so much to remember the past, as to transform the present and build hope for the future,” said Michael Berenbaum, director of the Sigi Ziering Institute at American Jewish University in Los Angeles.

The exhibit, which runs from March 24 through Aug. 13, is expected to sell out. Those wishing to attend are encouraged to purchase tickets online at www.ReaganLibrary.com/Auschwitz.