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As an actor, I have played many roles over my long career, but perhaps the most
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2
l'CHAIM
SPRING 2014
ople
ac c-r:H~\I.eH'"'{,)frlere met.
is a tribute to The Righteous
Among Nations.
BIGOTS CAN'T MARCH
Holocaust Museum: Skokie's Answer to the American Nazis
It takes more than a swaggering neo-Nazi
to scare a Holocaust survivor as a bunch
of goose-stepping Neanderthals learned
when they attempted to bring their particular
form of hatred to Skokie, Illinois.
38
L'CHAIM
SPRING 2014
BY BOB & SANDY NESOFF
Barred from holding a demonstration in Chicago in 1977,
the National Socialist Party (read-that as Nazis) tried to move
their function to Skokie, home to one of the greatest concentration of Holocaust survivors in the United States. The legal
war was on.
THE SAVVY SCHLEPPER
Clockwise from top: Concentration
camp uniform; Photographs of
Holocaust victims; The Chicago
Daily
Tribune from November 11, 1938.
Generating most of their support
from the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) the Nazis went to court.
The judge ruled that a swastika was a
provocation. With ACLU help the
Nazis finally held their demonstration in
Chicago to a crowd of only a handful of
people.
The futile march spurred an idea in
the minds of Skokie's Jewish residents
and in 1981 a small storefront was
created as a museum. But that wasn't
enough to tell the story and efforts to
increase and improve the exhibit fmally
came to fruition when in 2009 the
Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education
center was opened in Skokie.
Former President Bill Clinton was
the keynote speaker and Elie Wiesel
appeared as a special guest. Other
prominent figures, such as Israeli
leaders, appeared through the magic
of on-line connections.
It's worth noting that the name of
the facility does not specify the Nazi
Holocaust because it is far more encom-
passing than that. Exhibits make note
of the fact that other ethnic groups
suffered efforts to exterminate them.
It also has programs to combat the
modem day scourge of bullying someone because they may be "different."
Some of the exhibits are stark
reminders of the cruelty of some to others. There is an actual rail car used by
the Nazis to transport prisoners to concentration and death camps. Looking
inside of the wooden panels of the car a
visitor can almost feel the desperation
SPRING 2014
L.:CHAIM
39
THE SAVVY SCHLEPPER
Clockwise from top: Emblems worn by Hitler's supermen; A cattle car used to jam in Jews and others
tranporting to death camps; The Wall of Remembrance honoring those who perished in the Holocaust;
Holocaust victim histories; Front page of Milwaukee
Sentinel from August 21, 1934.
of those crowded into its small confines, gasping for what was to become
their last taste of air. Adding to the
realism, visitors can step in and feel the
ghosts that inhabit the artifact.
The Karkomi Permanent Exhibition
displays more than 500 artifacts,
documents and photographs that tell
the story of the Holocaust. There are
videos with testimony from survivors
who graphically tell their stories.
Most visitors take their time and
move slowly through the various
exhibits, drinking in and absorbing the
horror that was much of Europe in the
late 1930s and 1940s. The Room of
Remembrance pays homage to the six
million Jews and some five million non-
40
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SPRING 2014
Jews who were destroyed during those
terrible years.
On display are the striped blue and
white uniforms and yellow stars Jews
were forced to wear to identify them.
There are passports and identity cards
Jews were required to carry.
Interestingly, the "neutral" Swiss government requested of the Germans that
all Jewish identity cards be stamped
with a red "J" so that they would know
who was Jewish.
Many of the identity cards indicated
that the middle name of the individual
carrying the document was either
"Sara" or "Israel," a legal requirement
for all Jews issued passports after 1938.
One the floor of one room is the
moving exhibit depicting Kristallnacht.
Visitor walk over a glass paneled floor
under which are tens of thousands of
glass shards depicting the havoc
wrought on the night of Nov. 9, 1938.
That night Nazi orchestrated antiSemitic demonstrations in Germany and
Austria were directed against Jewishowned stores, hospitals, cemeteries and
homes that were vandalized; some
1,400 synagogues were burned, 30,000
Jews arrested and deported to concentration camps and more than 100 killed.
Today the Center is a powerful statement to those who would do harm to
others and a reminder to everyone else of
what could happen when complacency
takes over .•
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