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| Established | 1997 |
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| Location | 2000 East Cary Street, Richmond, Virginia |
| Type | Holocaust museum |
| Website | Official website |
The Virginia Holocaust Museum (VHM) is a public history museum located in Richmond, Virginia, United States. The museum is dedicated to depicting the Holocaust through the personal stories of its victims.
The VHM first opened in 1997, founded by Mark Fetter, Devorah Ben David, Jay Ipson, and Al Rosenbaum. [1] Housed in the former Education building at Temple Beth El, the museum became an attraction for school field trips. Within a few years, the museum outgrew the space at Temple Beth El, and required additional space to handle the growing number of visitors and school groups. The Virginia General Assembly offered the American Tobacco Company Warehouse for the relocation of the museum. After restoration and reconfiguration of the building, the expanded Virginia Holocaust Museum was dedicated on Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust Day of Remembrance, 2003.
The Virginia Holocaust Museum has grown steadily since 2003, and now has an average of over 42,000 visitors each year. The VHM remains an important location for Virginia field trips, with students from over 100 middle and high schools visiting yearly.
The museum began an extensive ongoing exhibition renovation project in 2015. Much of the permanent exhibition had never been updated since opening in 2003, and the renovations serve to both update the information contained with newly uncovered facts and figures, as well as update the core exhibition space to modern standards. The VHM hopes these renovations will be completed by 2020.
Founded to educate the community about the tragedies of the Holocaust, the Virginia Holocaust Museum memorializes and archives the atrocities of World War II. Through exhibits, programming, and outreach, the Museum uses the history of genocide to teach the dangers of prejudice and indifference.
Located on the first floor of the museum, the core exhibits narrate the history of the Holocaust. As visitors progress through these exhibits—and chronologically through the events of the Holocaust—they are presented with a glimpse into the systematic destruction of European Jewry. 300 artifacts and the testimonies of local Holocaust survivors expand upon this history, representing the tangible and personal realities of this event.
In 2004, the VHM acquired an authentic "goods wagon," or freight car, used during the Third Reich. Alexander Lebenstein, a local Holocaust survivor, worked with the museum to bring this important artifact to Richmond. [2] Visitors have the opportunity to enter the artifact and imagine the conditions experienced by the people transported in this type of rail car.
At the center of the VHM's core exhibits is the story of a single family, the Ipsons. The Ipson Saga exhibition shares the experience of a family of local Holocaust survivors whose confinement in the Kovno Ghetto and harried escape to a farm in the Lithuanian countryside highlight the constant dangers Jews faced during the Holocaust.
The Nuremberg Trials were the first international trials of major Nazi war criminals. As such, they served as a major source of documents and testimony for early Holocaust scholarship. The Nuremberg Courtroom exhibit gives visitors the chance to see a full recreation of Room 600 at the Palace of Justice, used during the International Military Tribunals, and to experience the gravity of the trials. [3] The Nuremberg Courtroom exhibit was opened to the public by Virginia Governor Tim Kaine during a ceremony in April 2008. [4]
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."
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history. It is dedicated to helping leaders and citizens of the world confront hatred, prevent genocide, promote human dignity, and strengthen democracy.
The Holocaust—the murder of about six million Jews by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945—is the most-documented genocide in history. Although there is no single document which lists all Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, there is conclusive evidence that about six million were murdered. There is also conclusive evidence that Jews were gassed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Operation Reinhard extermination camps, and in gas vans, and that there was a systematic plan by the Nazi leadership to murder them.
The Museum of Jewish Heritage, located in Battery Park City in Manhattan, New York City, is a living memorial to those murdered in the Holocaust. The museum has received more than 2 million visitors since opening in 1997. The mission statement of the museum is "to educate people of all ages and backgrounds about the broad tapestry of Jewish life in the 20th and 21st centuries—before, during, and after the Holocaust."
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.
The Austrian Service Abroad is a non-profit organization funded by the Austrian government 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. The Austrian Service Abroad is the issuer of the annually conferred Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award.
The Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, near Detroit, is Michigan's largest Holocaust museum.
The Montreal Holocaust Museum is a museum located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is dedicated to educating people of all ages and backgrounds about the Holocaust, while sensitizing the public to the universal perils of antisemitism, racism, hate and indifference. Through the museum, its commemorative programs and educational initiatives, it aims to promote respect for diversity and the sanctity of human life. The Museum was founded in 1979 as the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre and is Canada's first and only recognized Holocaust museum.
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.
The Maltz Museum is a private non-profit museum in the Cleveland suburb of Beachwood that celebrates the history of the Jewish community of Greater Cleveland and Northeast Ohio, as well as the diversity of the human experience. Opened on October 11, 2005, the Maltz Museum features two permanent collections, An American Story and The Temple - Tifereth Israel Gallery, in which personal stories are brought to life through film, computer interactives, special effects and exhibitions that feature artefacts, art, documents and images. The Museum also hosts rotating exhibitions, as well as weekly public programs.
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.
The Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award (AHMA) was founded by the Austrian Service Abroad in 2006.
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. 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.
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.
The International Museum of World War II was a nonprofit museum devoted to World War II located in Natick, Massachusetts, a few miles west of Boston. It was formed over a period of more than 50 years by its founder, Kenneth W. Rendell, one of the world's premier dealers in autographs, letters and manuscripts, who has earned international renown as an authenticator of historic artifacts. The museum's collections documented the events of the war, from the signing of the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I to the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crimes trials. The museum's goal was to preserve the reality of the history of World War II and to provide an educational experience of the lessons to be learned. In 2016, the Museum of World War II became The International Museum of World War II to reflect its being the only museum in the world with an international collection of letters, documents, and artifacts.
Al Rosenbaum was an American artist and the co-founder of the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond, Virginia.
The Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art (SMMJA) in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was founded in 1966 as the Gershon & Rebecca Fenster Museum of Jewish Art. From its inception until 1998, Tulsa's Congregation B'nai Emunah Synagogue housed the museum. Sherwin Miller was the museum's first curator. In 2000, the museum was renamed the Sherwin Miller Museum, and it moved to its present location at 2021 E 71st St in Tulsa, OK 74136 on the Zarrow Campus of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa in November 2004. The Sherwin Miller Museum, which houses the largest collection of Jewish art in the Southwestern United States, received accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums in 2013.
Jay M. Ipson is a Litvak-American Holocaust survivor and co-founder of the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond, Virginia.
Nuremberg: The Nazis Facing their Crimes is a 2006 documentary about the Nuremberg Trials made by French historian and director Christian Delage and coproduced by La Compagnie des Phares et Balises and ARTE France. The English version, narrated by Christopher Plummer, premiered at the Lincoln Center in 2007.
The Auschwitz Jewish Center is a non-governmental organization whose mission is to preserve the memory of the Jewish community of the city of Oświęcim and educate about the dangers of anti-Semitism, racism and other prejudices and intolerance.
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