Last week I attended the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust’s
First Annual Dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel in California. They were commemorating the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, “the night of broken glass” in Germany and Austria on November 9 and 10. Since I am about to officially start work on my own Holocaust film project with a survivor, I found inspiration in the survivors’ messages about continuing to educate the world. I also got to see a viewing of a world premiere of a incomplete documentary short called “Kristallnacht Remembered” by Evie Sullivan. This film is based on the book, “Sie Kamen Durch” (they Survived) by Senta Radax-Ziegler. Annie Wagner Lampl, one of the participants in the documentary was in attendance and she spoke a few words afterwards. The Museum’s director, Mark Rothman, wished her “until one hundred and twenty” and she laughed and said that she still had a few years to go.

The museum was founded in 1961 and is the oldest Holocaust Museum in the United States. This museum was also the first to create a teacher training program to train educators on how to teach the Holocaust in the classroom. The Museum created the first Catholic/Jewish dialogue in California, and the first dialogue between families of victims and families of perpetrators. The Museum published the first Holocaust curriculum guide in Spanish for bilingual education, and in 2003 created the first Holocaust exhibit displayed in Cuba.

There is currently a twenty million dollar capital campaign underway to move the museum to a larger location in a Pan Pacific Park, adjacent to the existing Holocaust Monument, where it will remain an important cultural institution. Architect Hagy Belzberg designed a signature museum building which will add green space to the park.

The evening began with a video presentation that showed the passion and energy of the board members, many of them survivors in their eighties and nineties. The mood was festive yet pensive, as survivors sadly remembered, as well as celebrated the progress of the museum’s important legacy.

Randol Schoenberg shared a personal story of how his family escaped the Holocaust with the help of a plumber named Morris Zeisl from the United States who helped arrange to sponsor them. This plumber had the same last name as they did, but he was not a relative. His grandmother found him in the phone book. She wrote letters to all the people who had the last name Zeisl, and “Morris the plumber” was able to raise the funds and make the arrangements, allowing his grandmother to escape to France.

In my experience, it’s these unbelievable anecdotes that really set the Holocaust subject matter apart. It’s often said that screenwriters could not have written this material, because it would simply be too unbelievable. What’s more, every survivor has their own moving, and usually fascinating story.

Jona Goldrich emphasized the importance of the evening, stating that donating to Holocaust education is the “most important investment in the world to make..”

Then, the Hamotzi was led by Felicia Haberfield, a survivor who we later learned was 97 years young.

Internationally renowned actor and singer, Theodore Bikel and classical pianist and conductor, Tamara Brooks performed a few heartfelt songs. Theodore shared his personal experiences during Kristallnacht including his memories from being kicked out of school in Vienna as a young boy. He said that we must remain “obsessed with teaching young people about the Holocaust,” even though the whole world wants us to forget.. because if we do, then “they’ll pick on some other minority.”

The 2008 Student Award was presented to an inspirational young woman, Emma Peretz, a bat mitzvah who is dedicating her religious ceremony to a girl who perished in the Holocaust, and asking for donations to the museum in lieu of gifts.

The 1939 Club and Organization of Holocaust Survivors and Descendants
was the 2008 Education Honoree. It’s one of the largest and most active Holocaust survivors organizations in the world. The club was started in 1952 and has grown to nearly a thousand members.

Mark Rothman eloquently concluded the evening, “Commit yourselves to world where there won’t be a Kristallnacht or a Holocaust.. that we can pick up broken glass and dispel darkness with light.”

It was an honor to attend the event and get to meet the survivors and hear some of their stories. I look forward to supporting their vital cause, and visiting the new museum upon its completion, and invite you to join me.