The following article appeared in the Albuquerque Journal on January 19, 2001
Friday, January 19, 2001
Beyond the Holocaust
By Paul Logan
Journal Staff Writer
Robert Gonzales thought he had seen his share of suffering and death serving in the Vietnam War.
But after a visit to the New Mexico Holocaust & Intolerance Museum, which opened Thursday, Gonzales admitted the powerful displays and photographs left him "with an empty feeling inside."
"This gives me a different perspective on life," said Gonzales, who recently moved to Albuquerque from California. "You don't feel so sorry for yourself when you see something like this."
The idea for the nonprofit museum began about 2 1/2 years ago, an outgrowth of a committee's work to establish the Holocaust memorial at Civic Plaza, said Werner Gellert, 74, museum board chairman and president.
Even though he is a Holocaust survivor, Gellert's dream was for the museum to be more than a memorial to the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis in World War II.
"I wanted it also to include the genocide against other cultures and peoples and nations," he said.
The museum also features exhibits about the 2 million Armenians exterminated by the Turks after World War I, New Mexico victims of the Bataan Death March and the 5 million non-Jews killed by the Nazis, including Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexuals.
Gellert, a Jew, experienced racial hatred in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. He remembers the "Night of Broken Glass" — Nov. 8-9, 1938 — when Nazis killed thousands of Jews and burned and pillaged their stores and synagogues.
He and his parents fled the country in 1939, ending up in Shanghai. But they spent 31/2 years in a Japanese internment camp there.
The museum rents space in the old Freed Co. building, next to the KiMo Theatre offices.
A replica of the gate at the most notorious death camp, Auschwitz, is the first thing visitors see. Above the barbed-wire-draped entrance, the Nazis' had a sign: "Arbeit Macht Frei" — Work Makes You Free.
An exhibit displays a shower head, on loan from the El Paso Holocaust Museum, from a gas chamber where thousands of Jews died.
The late Dick Kent, an Albuquerque photographer, was assigned to the Army Signal Corps during the war. His family allowed the museum to exhibit photos he took when Dachau, a German extermination camp, was liberated.
Another exhibit displays cloth patches Jews and other targeted people were forced to wear. It includes yellow Stars of David with various forms of the word "Jew" on each — "Jood" in Dutch, "Juif" in French and "Jude" in German. A pink triangle patch identified a homosexual prisoner. A purple triangle marked a person as a Jehovah's Witness.
Gellert said the Smithsonian Institution agreed to loan about 50 photographs for the museum's upcoming Native American exhibit.
Next month, Gellert plans to feature the exploits of people in Denmark and Bulgaria in helping save Jews during World War II.
In the coming weeks, the museum plans to open a study area. More than 500 books will be available dealing with the general history of hate and intolerance.
Joseph Trujillo, who lives at Isleta Pueblo, is building the study area in the back of the museum. Gellert credited Trujillo's volunteer work with helping launch the museum so quickly.
Gellert said the museum is seeking more volunteers to oversee the exhibits during the day. He estimated that the yearly budget for the museum will be about $25,000. Although the museum doesn't charge an entrance fee, it does accept donations.
Hilda Feigelson, one of the first visitors Thursday, said the displays reminded her of the large Holocaust museum she visited in Israel last year.
Her Jewish parents were Polish immigrants, said Feigelson, 72. Born in the United States, she recalled that as a child she would hear her parents whispering about what was happening to relatives who were victims of the Holocaust.
"I hope this sends a message," she said of the museum. "These things can happen again."
New Holocaust museum opens
WHERE: 415 W. Central
WHEN: Open weekdays from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 11 a.m.
to 3:30 p.m.
ADMISSION: Free
INFORMATION: 247-0606