New View Of Shoah

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New wings will examine pre-war European Jewry and how
"Righteous" people have saved others.

HARRY KIRSBAUM
StaffWriter

T

he Holocaust Memorial
Center in West Bloomfield,
where millions of visitors
have confronted the evi-
dence of unmitigated evil, will expand
to offer a new, more hopeful view of
humanity and Jewish experience, the
museum's head announced last week.
"The presentation of the Holocaust
needs to be augmented with a view of
the world it destroyed and a vision of
the future," said Rabbi Charles
Rosenzveig, HMC's founder, director
and driving force. "The impact of this
expansion will be profound."
He said he's raising $8 million to
build two new wings on the center,
adding 41,000 square feet of exhibit,
conference and office space to the cur-
rent 12,000 square feet. Work is
planned to start in the fall and be

Harry Kirsbaum can be reached at
(248) 354-6060 ext 244, or by e-mail
at: hkirsbaum @thejewishnews. corn.

2/19
1999

6 Detroit Jewish News

center in the country, behind the
completed in 18 months, he said.
United States Holocaust Memorial
One wing will contain the Museum
Museum in Washington, D.C., and the
of European Jewish Heritage, which
Simon Wiesenthal Center/Museum of
will show Jewish life before World
Tolerance in Los Angeles. Since its
War II. The structure will jut out from
opening in 1984, an estimated 2.5 mil-
the current HMC entrance, continu-
lion people have toured the West
ing east along the front of the adjacent
Bloomfield building - 1.6 million were
Kahn Jewish Community Center.
The other addition, expanding out-
students.
But because of space constraints,
ward from the southeast corner of the
building, will house a
new International
Institute of the
Righteous. The
Institute will show
biographies and pic-
tures of those who
We know what the Holocaust was.
saved not only Jewish
Now the Holocaust Memorial
lives, but lives of other
people throughout his-
Center here, like its counterparts
tory. Rosenzveig said
in Washington and Los Angeles,
the selection of those
individuals will begin
is exploring what it should mean
when the HMC
to us and our children. That
research committee
meets in mid-March.
requires new construction and
The HMC is the
a new intellectual focus.
third largest Holocaust

the HMC can only accommodate up
to eight groups of students during
the six hours it is open on weekdays,
making it necessary to delay some
school tours, said staff members.
Rosenzveig said poor ventilation and
a cramped research library also
require adding on to the current one-
story structure.
Now the center devotes most of its
darkly brooding and tightly enclosed
space to telling the story of the rise of
anti-Semitism in post-World War I
Europe, culminating in the
Holocaust. It leaves visitors with "a
very bleak picture of how low the
human being can stoop," said
Rosenzveig. "But that's not the model
we want for them.
Preliminary architectural sketches
show an auditorium or conference
center in the Righteous wing near the
lobby, and center offices above. The
second floor of the European Jewry
wing will house the library, moving
up from the ground floor.

"

HOLOCAUST CENTER on page 10

Neumann /Smit h an d Assoc iates, Architects.

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