Yesterday I spent quite a few hours at the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, part of a free field trip sponsored by the Biological Sciences Divison (or so I think). It’s the third largest Holocaust Museum in the world, probably after Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, which I visited, and (perhaps) the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., which I haven’t. This one is very large, and is full of interesting photos, articles, relics, and other memorabilia.
I guess it has so much stuff because Skokie, where the Museum resides, was mostly a Jewish suburb, and there were many Holocaust survivors who contributed items, as well as many Jews who donated money for this very large building.
We had a guided tour, though I had a tendency to wander off by myself to look at stuff. If you’re in Skokie and have an interest in these things, I recommend it highly. First, a few photos (I didn’t remember to take photos until later in the tour), which aren’t great because they were taken with my camera.
The two Nuremberg “Race Laws”, passed in 1935, not only defined as who counted as a Jew or an Aryan, but also forbade “intermingling” of Jews and non-Jews. According to the Holocaust Encyclopedia, the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor” stipulated this:
The second Nuremberg Law, the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, banned marriage between Jews and non-Jewish Germans. It also criminalized sexual relations between them. These relationships were labeled as “race defilement” (Rassenschande).
The law also forbade Jews to employ female German maids under the age of 45, assuming that Jewish men would force such maids into committing race defilement. Thousands of people were convicted or simply disappeared into concentration camps for race defilement.
Here’s a photo of two people who violated that law, and it struck me as particularly noxious. The woman is holding a sign that reads (my translation; note that it rhymes in German) “I am the biggest pig in this place and only associate with Jews.” The guy’s sign reads, “As a Jewish boy, I always take only German girls with me to my room.” The guy’s sign rhymes as well. I have no idea what happened to these people, but the Jewish man was almost certainly taken to the camps, and that almost certainly led to death.
Nazi armbands (real ones). Many of the inhabitants of Skokie were (and some still are) survivors of the Holocaust, and donated things like this to the Museum. The pin in the middle is, as you can see from the placard, a Hitler Youth Membership pin.
Below is a (genuine) postcard celebrating the “Anschluß“, when Germany annexed Austria on March 11-13 of 1938, claiming that the country was ethnically German. Later in the year, the UK, France, and Italy agreed that it was okay as well for Hitler to annex the part of Czechoslovakia also containing “ethnic” Germans, an area called the Sudetenland. This “Munich Agreement,” did not involve any Czechoslovakian participation. Hitler promised to leave the rest of the country alone and that he had no more territorial ambitions (he was lying, of course). Britain’s PM, Neville Chamberlain, returned to England with great approbation, declaring that he’d achieved “Peace for our time.” He was dead wrong, of course, and his loss of face when Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 led to Chamberlain’s ouster in 1940 (he died the same year).
I digress: this card is about the Anschluß, and reads: “13 March, 1938. One people, one country, one leader.”
Below is a very fancy hand-done document, labeled “Declaration of the State of Israel created by Arthur Szyk, 1948. On loan from Cipora Fox Katz.” It’s lovely, and Szyk, a Polish-American artist, has his own Wikipedia page, which says this:
Arthur Szyk was granted American citizenship on May 22, 1948, but he reportedly experienced the happiest day in his life eight days earlier: on May 14, the day of the announcement of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. Arthur Szyk commemorated that event by creating the richly decorated illumination of the Hebrew text of the declaration.
And, sure enough, here it is. Click photo to enlarge it and see its beauty:
I stopped by the gift shop on my way out, and among the many interesting thing was this “Bag of Plagues”: toys for kids commemorating the plagues visited on Egypt because Pharaoh wouldn’t let the Jews go:
Finally, one of the best parts of the Museum is a hologram of a Holocaust survivor, one of several created by the Shoah Foundation. When the survivors were alive, they spoke for about a week to the interviewers, and their answers were recorded. Their accounts were combined with modern technology and AI to enable the audience to ask questions of the hologram, and there is so much data recorded for each person that the holograms can answer almost any question (see the video at bottom for more details). Here’s a short recording I did of one survivor named Eva. Eva lived in Amsterdam as a child, where she was friends with Anne Frank. After the war, when Eva had lost her father and brother and Anne Frank her own sister and mother, Eva’s mother married Anne Frank’s father, Otto.
Here’s she’s answering an audience question about what her typical day at Auschwitz was like:
Here’s Leslie Stahl interviewing holograms of Holocaust survivors who had died before the interview. Yes, they are interviews with people who weren’t alive! This is an absolutely fantastic way to keep not just the accounts alive, but also the survivors themselves.
Thank you for this post. As a boy in the 1970s, I had read and heard about the Holocaust. I was quite familiar at the time with the neo-Nazis planned march through Skokie. And I still own a book of photographs documenting the Holocaust that my grandmother gave me when I was a teen. But none of that seared into memory quite like meeting some survivors in Skokie and seeing the identification numbers tattooed on their forearms. I have hope that this hologram exhibit will etch similar memories and reflections into today’s youth.
Eva rolled up her sleeve and showed us her tattoo. I hear that only in Auschwitz did they tattoo the inmates.
All I can really say is thanks for this post.
Talking to a hologram is amazing.
Years ago, friends of the family invited us to a passover party, and that was the first time I’d seen a bag of plagues. I think that one is this one: https://www.amazon.com/Passover-Bag-of-Ten-Plagues/dp/B007RPGY7E?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=A3NNSRNMBRKMLK&gQT=1, and farther down one sees what they are to represent.
I’m not sure that this innovation is a good thing. No one can claim to know how an AI programme simulating a dialogue works, and therefore a fortiori how much confidence can be placed in the statements made by (simulated) witnesses. Of course, written documents and photographs have been falsified in the past to serve political interests. But it was still possible to compare them with the originals. Where are the originals in the case of holograms?
They are not simulating a dialogue, but calling up monologues that each survivor made. That is, these are their own words, uttered in sequence, and their own memories. The originals are presumably on film, filmed by the Shoah project. If you doubt that, please say so. There is no “simulation” here. Surely you are not doubting that these survivors all made up their own stories, or that the Shoah project people put together their words into sentences. And, of course, everything I’ve ever read about Auschwitz comports very well with what Eva says.
Very interesting.
How is chatting with a hologram a better experience than watching a video interview of the person? I haven’t done this yet and the idea of it seems disturbing. Talking to someone who is not there- who isn’t anywhere at all because they are dead- does this make the information more impactful because it appears to be a person who is responding? But of course you would know they are not “responding”. I saw early holograms decades ago. I recall they looked too green to be convincing. They still appear ghostly. Maybe it is just my screen.
I would be pretty emotional to have a simulated conversation with a hologram Darwin. Even though I would know that it was devised from an algorithm based on his writings and personal accounts, it would still be a memorable experience.
It sounds as if the hologram heightens the imaginative experience.
Down House, where Darwin lived, now includes a reconstruction of his cabin on HMS Beagle, complete with copies of the books and instruments he was known to possess on board, plus a ghostly hologram of the man himself. It is not nearly as tacky as this description might suggest, but sadly Darwin himself is not available for interviews.
Sincere thanks to our host for this article. I found it very moving.
Because you would have to watch six days of conversation instead of just asking questions over an hour, and concentrate on getting the information you want. I presume you would not want to watch six days of interviews for each survivor!
The hologram really was quite realistic. Not identical to a real human, but pretty close.
Thanks for the explanation. I need to have this experience myself.
I once heard Ray Kurzweil (the computer genius) at an EDUCAUSE meeting about 20 years ago discussing technology in education. What has stuck in my mind was his description of real learning with technology. He said that a student in the future would really learn about the history of the American Revolution by talking to an electronic George Washington at the battle of Bunker Hill (Breed’s Hill). Nowadays we’d say that was through virtual reality. I think this hologram technology is a step towards that!
I hope that the hologram technology helps us remember the Holocaust.
Also, a movie suggestion “A Real Pain” is a great movie, albeit fictional, about two grandsons who travel to Poland to honor the recently deceased grandmother.
Within just a few years, none of the survivors will remain. The holograms are priceless.
I have been to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, but I didn’t stay as long as I would have liked. My wife and I visited with a close friend. After a short while viewing the exhibits and contemplating the horror, our friend simply had to leave—she needed to breathe the outdoor air. We left with her. We’ll go back the next time we’re in Washington, DC.
Everyone should visit a Holocaust museum. No. Holocaust museums are not there to remind us about about man’s inhumanity to man. That is not the right lesson. Holocaust museums are there to serve as enduring proof of Hitler’s Germany’s campaign to exterminate a great and ancient people—the Jews of Europe.
Thank you for reporting on your visit, Jerry.
The Holocaust Museum in DC can absolutely cause someone to want to flee. I was alone when I visited and recall how painful it was to experience the entire museum in one visit of several hours. The powerful architecture supports the agony of the story and artifacts.
Thanks for this post with the YouTube links re this powerful project. I watched them. It’s a somber rainy morning and I cry easily. Recently my older brother found some Israel Bonds (early 1950’s) that our paternal grandfather bought for the grandsons he never met. I asked them — what to do with these? — answer — frame them under glass. As a Mischling I would not have done well there.
I also visited Jad Vashem in Jerusalem with my late Jewish wife. I was particularly moved by the huge bin of children’s shoes there. I find myself tearing up even now almost 20 years later when contemplating the implication of that bin. It is beyond disgusting that all these years later Jews around the world are being vilified and attacked once again for the “crime” this time of having a country with an army which is capable of inflicting a cost on those who attempt to complete the Holocaust. One doesn’t have to be a Jew to feel this way about this vast catastrophe. One need only be human.
Thank you Ullrich.
👍!
I recommend a visit, if you have a chance, to the memorial to the Grand Synagogue of Leipzig. The synagogue was destroyed during Kristallnacht. The memorial, where the synagogue was, is constituted by 140 bronze chairs, representing the synagogue and the congregation. It is a very moving memorial where you can spend time just taking it in. Also very moving are the memorial stones set into the ground in many of the European cities where Jews and others were killed. The stone tells you that right here is where their life was until the Nazis destroyed it.
My German grandfather and French-Jewish grandmother made it to Australia in the late 1920s. None of her relations who remained in Europe survived, apparently; at least, she never managed to get in touch with any. Now that I am approaching a late retirement, I am sometimes emotionally overwhelmed when I contemplate the accidental fortune of my own existence, and the alternative that was faced by so many.
I have never been to one of these museums but want to go soon (I’m near the one mentioned above). Wondering if my 7 and 9 year old daughters are too young for this. I feel that it would give them some perspective, but perhaps it would be too much. (I’m not a coddler of my kids and look to provide opportunities to get them ready for real life as much as reasonably possible.) Curious as to folk’s perspective or experience on this.
I’m not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but I would say the minimum age is 12. I would not take a child younger than that to a Holocaust museum.
What one should always bear in mind: The “Anschluss” was wanted and cheered by a large majority of Austrians.
The “victim theory”, which was often used by the Austrian population after the war, is a myth to portray Austria as the first innocent victim of the Nazis and to whitewash itself of its crimes which includd the persecution of the Jews.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria_victim_theory