Holocaust Museum LA

Last updated

Holocaust Museum LA
Holocaust Museum LA Logo.png
Lamoth.JPG
USA Los Angeles Metropolitan Area location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location of Holocaust Museum LA
Former name
Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust
Established1961;62 years ago (1961)
Location Pan Pacific Park
100 S The Grove Dr
Fairfax District, Los Angeles,
CA 90036
Coordinates 34°04′29″N118°21′22″W / 34.074609°N 118.356230°W / 34.074609; -118.356230
TypeHolocaust/history museum
Visitors500,000
DirectorBeth Kean
Website www.holocaustmuseumla.org

Holocaust Museum LA, formerly known as Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, is a museum located in Pan Pacific Park within the Fairfax district of Los Angeles, California. [1] Founded in 1961 by Holocaust survivors, Holocaust Museum LA is the oldest museum of its kind in the United States. Its mission is to commemorate those murdered in the Holocaust, honor those who survived, educate about the Holocaust, and inspire a more dignified and humane world.

Contents

History

Holocaust Museum LA is the oldest museum founded by Holocaust survivors [2] in the United States. In 1961, a group of Holocaust survivors in an English as a second language class at Hollywood High School met and realized their deep connection and drive to steward the past. [2] They began meeting to discuss their personal experiences, and the importance of commemorating their lost relatives and friends and educating future generations. They all had primary sources, such as photographs, artifacts, documents, and memories, and they decided that these objects needed a permanent home –a sanctuary for documentation, commemoration, preservation, and education.

Holocaust Museum LA opened its permanent subterranean building in Pan Pacific Park in October, 2010. Since then, it has had over 500,000 visitors.

Education

Public programs: Museum admission is free for all students and California residents. Visitors can explore the museum independently and take a self-guided tour using the museum's free audio guide. Staff and docents also offer guided tours throughout the week. The museum offers public events, in-person and online, including conversations with Holocaust survivors, lectures, film screenings and concerts. In 2020, the museum launched "Building Bridges," [1] a cross-cultural discussion series that brings together leaders from diverse communities for conversations about working toward common social justice goals.

Student education: Museum tours are designed to conform to the California State's curriculum, legislation, and academic standards regarding Holocaust education. In cooperation with teachers, museum staff customize each tour to fit the age level, prior knowledge, background and interests of the students. The museum uses personal narratives, artifact-rich exhibits, and technology to provide access to this history. The “Art & Memory” creative educational programs annually connect survivors with teens, who learn about their own heritage, retell the survivors’ stories, and share their reflections through different art mediums such as film, theatre and photography.

Architecture

Holocaust Museum LA Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust.jpg
Holocaust Museum LA

In 2010, the President of the Museum Board, [3] Randy Schoenberg, led the museum to move into its permanent home, designed by renowned architect Hagy Belzberg. [3] Schoenberg's story of litigating the return of the Klimt painting, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, from Austria was featured in the film Woman in Gold.

The juxtaposition of the physical building and the surrounding park is a key component in the architectural design of the building. [4] The museum is divided into three spaces: the internal museum space, the Goldrich Family Foundation Children's Memorial, and the outdoor Martyrs Memorial.

As visitors move through the internal museum the light and space change, mirroring the change of time through history. The galleries are organized chronologically and cover Jewish life before the Holocaust, as well as key historical events between 1933 and 1945. The museum features a collection of primary sources, and Holocaust Museum LA holds one of the largest collections in the United States of artifacts from the Holocaust period. [5]

The Children's Memorial is an outdoor reflective space where the approximately 1.5 million children who were murdered in the Holocaust are remembered. There are 1.2 million holes of various sizes in the walls of the Children's Memorial, and visitors can write messages to the children. A small Garden of the Righteous pays homage to non-Jews who risked their lives to save others.

Finally, the Martyr's Memorial monument, which was built in the early 1990s, consists of six 18-foot-high (5.5 m) triangular, black granite pillars. Each one honors the 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. These pillars are also meant to symbolize the crematoria smokestacks. [6]

The building design received the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission Design Honor Award, the Green Building Design Award, and a Gold LEED rating [7]  –the national standard of sustainable architecture. The award-winning interior and exterior architecture reflect the poignant history covered in the museum's galleries.

Exhibitions

Expansion

Because the number of visitors to the museum increased by 400% since 2011, an expansion was planned in 2021. The Jona Goldrich Campus will be designed by architect Hagy Belzberg, [16] with new indoor and outdoor spaces that will double its footprint in Pan Pacific Park. The museum hopes to amplify its reach and impact and increase its visibility. [17] In June 2022, Susan and Eric Smidt donated $5 million toward the development of the Jona Goldrich Campus. [18]

A new Learning Center Pavilion along The Grove Drive, adjacent to the existing building, will include a dedicated theater for USC Shoah Foundation’s Dimensions in Testimony. This 200-seat theater will be used for film screenings, concerts, conferences and public programs. The Learning Center Pavilion will also have outdoor reflective spaces, two classrooms for large student groups and programs for younger audiences, and 2,500 sq. ft. of special exhibit space. In addition, a new Boxcar Pavilion built to house an authentic boxcar found outside of Majdanek death camp in Poland will be constructed on top of the existing building. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Shoah</i> (film) 1985 French documentary film about the Holocaust

Shoah is a 1985 French documentary film about the Holocaust, directed by Claude Lanzmann. Over nine hours long and 11 years in the making, the film presents Lanzmann's interviews with survivors, witnesses and perpetrators during visits to German Holocaust sites across Poland, including extermination camps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yad Vashem</span> Israels official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust

Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the survivors; honoring Jews who fought against their Nazi oppressors and gentiles who selflessly aided Jews in need; and researching the phenomenon of the Holocaust in particular and genocide in general, with the aim of avoiding such events in the future. Yad Vashem's vision, as stated on its website, is: "To lead the documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust, and to convey the chronicles of this singular Jewish and human event to every person in Israel, to the Jewish people, and to every significant and relevant audience worldwide."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drancy internment camp</span> Internment camp for Jews in occupied France during World War II

Drancy internment camp was an assembly and detention camp for confining Jews who were later deported to the extermination camps during the German occupation of France during World War II. Originally conceived and built as a modernist urban community under the name La Cité de la Muette, it was located in Drancy, a northeastern suburb of Paris, France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gedenkdienst</span>

Gedenkdienst is the concept of facing and taking responsibility for the darkest chapters of one's own country's history while ideally being financially supported by one's own country's government to do so. Founded in Austria in 1992 by Andreas Maislinger, the Gedenkdienst is an alternative to Austria's compulsory national military service as well as a volunteering platform for Austrians to work in Holocaust and Jewish culture-related institutions around the world with governmental financial support. In Austria it is also referred to as Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service provided by the Austrian Service Abroad. The Austrian Gedenkdienst serves the remembrance of the crimes of Nazism, commemorates its victims and supports Jewish cultural future. The program is rooted in the acknowledgment of responsibility by the Austrian government for the crimes committed by National Socialism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Austrian Service Abroad</span>

The Austrian Service Abroad is a non-profit organization which sends young Austrians to work in partner institutions worldwide serving Holocaust commemoration in form of the Gedenkdienst, supporting vulnerable social groups and sustainability initiatives in form of the Austrian Social Service and realizing projects of peace within the framework of the Austrian Peace Service. Its services aim at the permanence of life on earth. The Austrian Service Abroad carries and promotes the idea of the House of Responsibility for the birthplace of Adolf Hitler in Braunau am Inn. The Austrian Service Abroad is the issuer of the annually conferred Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award. The program is funded by the Austrian government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holocaust Museum Houston</span> Holocaust museum in Houston, Texas

The Holocaust Museum Houston is located in Houston's Museum District, in Texas. It is the fourth largest holocaust museum in the U.S. It was opened in 1996.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Blatt</span> Holocaust survivor

Thomas "Toivi" Blatt was a Holocaust survivor, writer of mémoires, and public speaker, who at the age of 16 escaped from the Sobibór extermination camp during the uprising staged by the Jewish prisoners in October 1943. The escape was attempted by about 300 inmates, many of whom were recaptured and killed by the German search squads. Following World War II Blatt lived in Communist Poland until the Polish October. In 1957, he emigrated to Israel, and in 1958 settled in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">March of the Living</span> Annual international Holocaust education and remembrance program

The March of the Living is an annual educational program which brings students from around the world to Poland, where they explore the remnants of the Holocaust. On Holocaust Memorial Day observed in the Jewish calendar, thousands of participants march silently from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp complex built during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florida Holocaust Museum</span> Holocaust museum in St. Petersburg, Florida

The Florida Holocaust Museum is a Holocaust museum located at 55 Fifth Street South in St. Petersburg, Florida. Founded in 1992, it moved to its current location in 1998. Formerly known as the Holocaust Center, the museum officially changed to its current name in 1999. It is one of the largest Holocaust museums in the United States. It was founded by Walter and Edith Lobenberg both of whom were German Jews who escaped persecution in Nazi Germany by immigrating to the United States. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel served as Honorary Chairman and cut the ribbon at the 1998 opening ceremony. The Florida Holocaust Museum is one of three Holocaust Museums that are accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. The museum works with the local community and survivors of the Holocaust to spread awareness and to educate the public on the history of the Holocaust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Holocaust Remembrance Day</span> International memorial day on 27 January for the victims of Nazi genocides

The International Holocaust Remembrance Day, or the International Day in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, is an international memorial day on 27 January that commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, which resulted in the genocide of one third of the Jewish people, along with countless members of other minorities by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, an attempt to implement its "final solution" to the Jewish question. 27 January was chosen to commemorate the date when the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army in 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum</span> Holocaust / human rights museum in Dallas, TX

The Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum is a history education museum in Dallas, Texas, in the West End Historic District at the southeast corner of N. Houston Street and Ross Avenue. Its mission is to teach the history of the Holocaust and advance human rights to combat prejudice, hatred, and indifference. It features climate-controlled archives and a research library to expand education.

USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education, formerly Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides, a compelling voice for education and action. It was established by Steven Spielberg in 1994, one year after completing his Academy Award-winning film Schindler's List. In January 2006, the foundation partnered with and relocated to the University of Southern California (USC) and was renamed the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education. In March 2019, the institute opened their new global headquarters on USC's campus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belzberg Architects</span> American architecture and interior design firm

Belzberg Architects is an architecture and interior design firm located in the City of Santa Monica, California founded by Hagy Belzberg, FAIA OAA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sigi Ziering</span> American dramatist

Sigi Ziering was a German-born American business executive, scientist, playwright and philanthropist. A Holocaust survivor, he immigrated to the United States with his family, earned a doctorate in theoretical physics in 1958, and worked for a time as an industrial physicist. In 1973 he became president of the Diagnostic Products Corporation, a tiny startup company that was developing advanced tests used for medical diagnosis. By the time of Ziering's death, the company had 1700 employees and marketed more than 400 immunodiagnostic tests. In 2006, the company was acquired by Siemens for 1.86 billion dollars (US) and became a subsidiary, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics. In later life, Ziering was an active philanthropist in Los Angeles, California.

Jona Goldrich was an American real estate developer and philanthropist. Born in Lviv, he emigrated to Israel in the midst of World War II, where he served in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and worked for a labor union. By the 1950s, he emigrated to the United States, and he became a real estate developer and investor in Los Angeles County. A Holocaust survivor, he supported Jewish causes in Israel and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UK Holocaust Memorial</span> Planned memorial in London, England, UK

A UK Holocaust Memorial memorial and learning centre was first proposed in 2015 to preserve the testimony of British Holocaust survivors and concentration camp liberators and to honour Jewish and other victims of Nazi persecution, including Roma, homosexual, and disabled people.

Hagy Belzberg, FAIA, OAA, is an American architect based in Santa Monica, California. He is the founding partner of the architecture and interior design firm Belzberg Architects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renée Firestone</span> Hungarian-American Holocaust survivor, educator and fashion designer

Renée Firestone is a Hungarian-Jewish survivor of the Holocaust and educator, who became known for her fashion designs in the 1960s after she immigrated to the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Mosberg</span> Holocaust survivor (1926–2022)

Edward Mosberg was a Polish-American Holocaust survivor, educator, and philanthropist. During the Holocaust, he was held by the Nazis from 14 years of age in Kraków Ghetto, Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, Auschwitz concentration camp, Mauthausen concentration camp, and a slave labor camp in Linz, Austria, that was liberated by the US Army in 1945. Nearly all of his family were murdered in the Holocaust.

References

  1. 1 2 Vankin, Deborah (28 August 2020). "Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust changes its name, putting history first". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 1 September 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 Rothstein, Edward (23 March 2011). "Bearing Witness Beyond the Witnesses". The New York Times.
  3. 1 2 Berrin, Danielle (19 September 2017). "Schoenberg parts With Holocaust Museum LA, citing problems with new management". The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles . Tribe Media Corp. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  4. ↑ Hawthorne, Christopher (28 October 2010). "Architecture review: Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust". Los Angeles Times.
  5. ↑ Belzberg, Hagy. "Holocaust Museum LA". Belzberg Architects. Belzberg Architects.
  6. ↑ The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. "Martyrs Memorial and Museum of the Holocaust". United States Holocaust Museum. USHMM. Retrieved 13 August 2008.
  7. ↑ AIA. "The Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust". Architect Magazine. Architect Magazine. Retrieved 17 July 2012.
  8. ↑ "Virtual 360 Tour". Hmla.org. Matterport. June 2021.
  9. ↑ "On Exhibit: Dimensions in Testimony". Hmal.org. USC Shoah Foundation. 31 August 2021.
  10. ↑ Banks, Sandy (18 April 2020). "Coronavirus rules challenge Holocaust memorial tradition, but it survives". Los Angeles Times.
  11. ↑ Lewis, Amanda (23 April 2012). "L.A. Museum of the Holocaust's Tree of Testimony Tells Survivors' Stories Through Video Art". LA Weekly.
  12. ↑ Shenker, Noah (3 August 2015). Reframing Holocaust Testimony. Indiana University Press. p. 217. ISBN   978-0-253-01717-8.
  13. ↑ Fabrikant, Geraldine (9 March 2020). "From Swastika Selfies to Lessons on Nazism". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 31 August 2020.
  14. ↑ KABC (5 December 2018). "LA Museum of the Holocaust features 'kindertransport' exhibit". ABC7 Los Angeles. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
  15. ↑ Fuller, Elizabeth (19 August 2019). "Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LAMOTH) Shares Stories of Atrocities and Survival". Larchmont Buzz. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
  16. ↑ Miranda, Carolina (6 October 2021). "How a Hagy Belzberg expansion will change the Holocaust Museum LA's Mid-City profile". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 6 October 2021.
  17. ↑ Farr, Harvet (9 December 2021). "Hagy Belzberg Is Teaching About the Holocaust Through Architecture". Jewish Journal. Jewish Journal. Retrieved 9 December 2021.
  18. ↑ "Smidt Foundation commits $5 million to Holocaust Museum LA expansion". Philanthropy News Digest. 15 June 2022. Retrieved 30 August 2021.
  19. ↑ "Holocaust Museum L.A. plans major expansion". Beverly Press. Beverly Press. 7 October 2021. Retrieved 7 October 2021.

34°03′50″N118°22′09″W / 34.063886°N 118.369285°W / 34.063886; -118.369285

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.