The new Holocaust & Humanity Center celebrates its grand opening at the Cincinnati Museum Center on Sunday, International Holocaust Remembrance Day.The day marks the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and HHC Director Sarah Weiss says it feels fitting to open the center's doors on the 74th anniversary of the opening of Auschwitz's gates.
"We're particularly moved by this connection because we have so many survivors participating in this day," she says. "Some survivors of Auschwitz; some survivors of other places who will be a part of our ribbon cutting."
Indeed survivors, both of the Holocaust and World War II veterans, play a key part in the story told throughout the center. Visitors will view what happened through eye-witness accounts of people who would later come and settle in Cincinnati. It's fitting, she points out, that thosesurvivors arrived through the very train station that now houses the center.
Weiss describes the various portions of the museum, explaining the first-person narrative structure woven throughout the galleries comes from local people. Sections are broken down under one-word headings like "power," "violence," "war," "escape," and "survival."
The museum has three times the amount of space as its previous home, allowing for interactive displays, including one that takes advantage of the unique location of the space adjacent to the Union Terminal rail yard.
Rather than walling off existing windows in the museum's space, an exhibit detailing the deportation of Jews to concentration camps in cattle cars strategically frames the trains going by outside.
It's a poignant duality that highlights the story the center tells.
"On one hand, this is an installation about trains that were deporting people to horrible places, but then you see the train tracks of Union Terminal and you realize that these train tracks brought people to a new home and a new life," Weiss explains.
"I think there is an urgency in this moment that we tell the stories of the survivors, the eye-witnesses, and recognizing that we're the last generation to live among survivors and World War II veterans.
"We know that there's relevance in this history as well. Not only is it important to preserve the stories and the lessons and make sure we document the artifacts and the history that we have, but we want to do so to ensure that we learn something as well."
To see photos of the Holocaust & Humanity Center's new space, click the photo above.
