Holocaust Audio Tour

National Museum of the U.S. Air Force

This tour explores the "Prejudice and Memory: A Holocaust Exhibit," which is made up of photographs, artifacts and memories of people who live in the Dayton, Ohio, area. read less
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Episódios

Holocaust Audio Tour 10: Fragments of the Budapest Ghetto
10-09-2015
Holocaust Audio Tour 10: Fragments of the Budapest Ghetto
Near the “Places of Ha’Shoah” images is another grouping titled “Fragments of the Budapest Ghetto.” These scenes are from an old Jewish section of Pest, Hungary, a district of 19th century buildings near the Danube River. Here the Nazis established a large ghetto in June 1944, several months after occupying Hungary and deporting virtually every Jew living in the provinces. Budapest’s 220,000 Jews were forced into 2,000 houses marked with a yellow star. In October, Hungarian Fascists began their program of anti-Jewish violence, even as Soviet troops approached the city. In November, thousands of Jews were shot and thrown into the Danube and preparations were made for massive deportation of those remaining. The Soviets occupied Budapest on Jan. 18, 1945, and an estimated 120,000 Jews were saved. Dominating the Jewish section is the Moorish-style Dohany Street Synagogue, a huge, ornate, twin-towered structure inaugurated in 1859 by the city’s Neolog (Reform) congregation. The largest active synagogue in Europe, it seats 3,000 and has undergone a full restoration that was completed in 2009. During the war, the church was fenced off and used as a concentration camp for Jews massed prior to deportation. In the arcade courtyard are individual and mass graves of thousands of Budapest’s ghetto victims. Another courtyard contains a memorial to Hungarian Holocaust victims, a weeping willow tree created in granite and steel, by Hungarian sculptor Irma Varga. On nearby Sip Street are found the offices of the Central Board of Hungarian Jews, the Budapest Jewish Community, the World Jewish Congress and the American Joint Distribution Committee. The immediate neighborhood offers an Orthodox Mikvah, kosher restaurants, grocers and wine shops, Jewish gift shops and three Jewish schools.
Holocaust Audio Tour 04: The Terror Begins
10-09-2015
Holocaust Audio Tour 04: The Terror Begins
Hitler came to power legally in January 1933, promising to remove Jewish influence from German life. In April 1933, Germans burned Jewish books and forced most Jewish government employees and professionals to leave their jobs. Jewish life was further restricted by September 1935 by the passage of the Nuremburg Laws. These laws identified Jews by the religion of their grandparents. Some people who practiced Christianity discovered they were now classified as Jews who lost all rights of citizenship. Hitler also decided to “improve the purity of the Aryan race” by killing all German adults and children who had physical or mental disabilities. After 1937 Jewish children were not allowed to go to school, swim in public pools or even play on public playgrounds. Germans forced Jews out of their businesses and required them to wear a yellow star for identification. As things got worse, many left Germany but others stayed behind hoping things would get better. Some who wanted to leave could not obtain entry into other countries. The Nazis found an excuse to organize large scale violence against the Jewish people. When a Jewish teenager shot a German diplomat in Paris, German authorities immediately instigated mob violence on November 9 and 10, 1938. Thousands of Jewish businesses were destroyed and synagogues burned. So many store windows were smashed and homes ransacked that this night became known as Kristallnacht or Night of Broken Glass. Many Jews were beaten and at least 91 killed, and authorities sent over 30,000 Jewish men between the ages of 16 and 60 to concentration camps. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, they forced Polish Jews out of their homes and into closed-off neighborhoods called ghettos. Many families had to leave everything behind. They could only bring what they could carry. Food was scarce and the ghettos were very crowded. In many ghettos, the Germans forced the Jews to work making supplies and munitions for the German army. Many Jews were worked to death. Others died of starvation or were shot trying to escape. Jews were rounded up and sent to death camps regularly.
Holocaust Audio Tour 05: The Final Solution
10-09-2015
Holocaust Audio Tour 05: The Final Solution
In June 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Following the army were special mobile killing units known as Einsatzgruppen. They rounded up Jews and murdered them. More than one million Jews and millions of Soviet citizens were killed. In January 1942 Nazi leaders decided to kill all Jews living in the areas occupied by the German army. This project, which became a national priority for Germans, was known as the “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem.” Within a few months, the Germans began to empty the ghettos and force Jews into crowded boxcars. They were transported, without food or water, to death camps. Many died during the trip. When the trains arrived a selection occurred: camp guards killed women, children and the aged with poison gas. Only the able-bodied young remained alive to work as slave laborers. The Germans forced them to carry the victims’ bodies and sort out their belongings. When they were no longer needed, these men and women were killed. In addition to Jews, the Nazis sent other people to concentration camps and slave labor camps. Among these were political prisoners, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, persons with various disabilities, and ethnic minorities like Gypsies and persons of color. Many people were killed because they did not work hard enough. Others were tortured and killed for no reason other than racial hatred. Some Jews fought back. They joined partisan units that lived in the forests and attacked Germans. Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto rebelled and fought until the Germans finally burned the ghetto down. In the Treblinka death camp, the Jews rioted and several hundred escaped. At Auschwitz, a Jewish group attacked the guards and destroyed some crematory ovens.
Holocaust Audio Tour 03: History of the Holocaust
10-09-2015
Holocaust Audio Tour 03: History of the Holocaust
Stand on the opposite side of the granite wall of photographs. Within this exhibit is a wall of photos and other artifacts that provide an in-depth history of the Holocaust. The first panel, titled “Prejudice and Lies,” provides an historic overview of the Holocaust. Survivors of the World War II Holocaust and their families are living among us. They are European Jews who have survived the Nazi effort to systematically exterminate the world’s Jewish population between 1933 and 1945. Their stories and artifacts shared in this exhibit remind us that we must be ever watchful to prevent its recurrence to people everywhere. Germans were proud of their cultural heritage and some came to believe that they were superior to other people and nations. After losing World War I and being forced to pay heavy reparations, many Germans were angry because people were out of work and food was scarce. High inflation impoverished the middle class as people were forced to bring wheelbarrows full of money to pay for a loaf of bread. The Germans looked for someone to blame for the loss of the war and for their troubles. The Nationalist Socialist Workers Party, or Nazi Party, led by Adolf Hitler, gave the German people a comfortable answer. He blamed the Jews. One in six Jews had fought and 12,000 died alongside other Germans in World War I. Many others received awards for heroism. He claimed the Jews were intent on destroying the German people. Logic was replaced by emotions. The truth was replaced by old lies and prejudice.
Holocaust Audio Tour 01: About the Exhibit
10-09-2015
Holocaust Audio Tour 01: About the Exhibit
Stand at the “gate” to enter the Holocaust exhibit. I’m Renate Frydman, project director and curator for the “Prejudice and Memory” exhibit. In the years since 1960 when I first began speaking about the Holocaust, audiences have most responded to the personal items – a singular family picture, a passport with a red letter ”J,” a letter stating when and where grandparents were sent to be killed. The Holocaust exhibit at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force brings the millions down to the singular faces. They are your neighbors from all parts of the greater Dayton area. Now you know someone living right next to you could be a survivor, a liberator or a “righteous Gentile.” In collecting these many pictures and artifacts, I learned once again stories of incredible courage, of horror and sacrifices, of loss and rebirth. I am amazed at the trust contributors had in giving me the only picture of a parent or family member to use in this exhibit. I tried to treat each one with the reverence it deserves. I am grateful for the benefactors who made this exhibit possible and to the Boonshoft Museum of Natural History for having the vision to premier this exhibit in September 1997. The two-year period of collection and of building this exhibit was intense and fulfilling. We present it to the people of this area as a memory of the past and a hope that prejudice will diminish in the future. With the firm belief in the resilience of the human spirit and the hope for a better tomorrow, I ask that you join me in Tikum Olam, helping heal the world.
Holocaust Audio Tour 12: The Violin
10-09-2015
Holocaust Audio Tour 12: The Violin
Move to the violin on exhibit to learn Robert Kahn’s history. Mr. Kahn recounted his experience in a letter: “59 years ago on November 9, 1938, a teenager 15 years old, experienced the most violent, barbaric display of anti-Semitic acts ever recorded in history. I was that teenager! The day began by witnessing the purposeful destruction of the only Jewish school in the area, while people cheered and applauded. It was my school. Then, as I hurried home on my bike, I arrived to see a mob of Nazis, in brown and black uniforms throwing our furniture and other belongings through windows which had been smashed, and off the balcony. In the yard below, a huge bonfire consumed everything that was dear to us, while the Nazi hoards and mob of onlookers sang and shouted insults at us, the Jews. While our apartment was being destroyed and ransacked, mother was locked up in one room, crying loudly. My father was being beaten up in the hallway, begging for mercy. When I told them to stop, they took me into my room, threw my violin at me, took me to the balcony and ordered me to play happy German songs. I was scared, crying, in agony but play I did to the amusement of the crowd. My father was taken to Dachau concentration camps. Our two beautiful synagogues were destroyed. Before I fled Germany, and eventual freedom in America, I hid the violin in the attic of our apartment. When I returned from military service in the U.S. Army and the war was won over Hitler, I wrote to the janitor of our apartment in Mannheim, Germany. He found the hidden violin and sent it to me in America. This is the violin which shares all the memories of the past with me. At one time it could vibrate to imitate the happy flight of song birds; today it is only a reminder of a once dehumanized and terrified Jewish boy.” - Signed, Robert Kahn, September 15, 1997
Holocaust Audio Tour 14: Henry Wyrobnik
10-09-2015
Holocaust Audio Tour 14: Henry Wyrobnik
Go to the photo cut out of the man showing a concentration camp tattoo on his forearm. This man is Henry Wyrobnik. Henry was born in Lodz, Poland. He, his parents, siblings and many other family members were put into the Lodz Ghetto by the Nazis until August 1944, when he and his family were sent to Auschwitz. Henry shared some reflections of his experiences. As the Allied Armies approached, he and thousands of others were taken on a Death March beginning on Jan. 15, 1945. They were given only small amounts of bread. They marched for two weeks, day and night. If someone lagged behind or walked out of line, they were shot immediately by German soldiers. They were put on open coal trains, other trains were hooked on, and they spent two weeks on the train. They had nothing to eat but snow. In Czechoslovakia, people threw food to the trains as they went through the countryside, but the Czech people were shot by the SS, a quasi-military unit that serviced as Hitler’s personal guard, if they were caught throwing food. One hundred eight people were on Henry’s train, “packed like sardines,” and at the end only 35 remained. The train finally took them to Mauthausen. There they were forced to bury bodies in mass graves. In Mauthausen, they had no clothes, no food and were sitting in crowded barracks. At the end of three or four weeks, they were sent to Gunskirchen, a sub-camp of Mauthausen. At the end, Henry says they “spent three weeks without water to drink, living in the woods with mud so deep if you stepped into it, you would sink in.” Many people from other countries were also imprisoned there. They built barracks for 500 people, which were actually a gas chamber. On May 5, 1945, Gunskirschen was liberated and Henry was freed and eventually sent to a hospital to recuperate. He had lost his whole family, including his parents, one brother and two sisters. Henry met his wife, Dora, also a survivor, in a Displaced Persons (DP) Camp at Feldafing, Germany. They came to the U.S. in 1949, and he worked for Shillitos, a department store in Cincinnati. Later, he owned his own business and came to Dayton.