2023 30thAnniversaryCommemorativeBook SINGLEPAGES-small - Flipbook - Page 49
KEEPING
STORIES ALIVE
Although our early
years were marked by
the Great Depression,
Tamar and I often look
back through our lives and
contemplate how fortunate we were
to have grown up on this side of the
Atlantic. But the rise of antisemitism
was not confined to Europe in the
1930s. Even as a kindergartener, I was
the recipient of taunting and bullying
that came with being the only Jewish
student in my school. While that
experience pales in comparison to
what was happening on a daily basis
to families and whole communities
overseas, it has stayed with me,
influencing how I approached much
of what I wanted to achieve in life.
We founded the Maltz Museum
of Jewish Heritage in Beachwood,
Ohio, with a simple mission: to
build bridges of tolerance and
understanding by sharing Jewish
heritage through the lens of the
American experience. The Maltz
Museum has hosted and developed
many substantive and significant
exhibitions, about topics including
the Holocaust, racism and hate, and
social justice. We are most proud in
particular of an exhibition the Maltz
Museum co-developed: Operation
Finale: The Capture and Trial of Adolf
Eichmann. After successful runs at
home in Beachwood and elsewhere in
the United States, a six-city, two-year
tour of Germany is in the works.
The United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum, with its
unparalleled authority on the
Holocaust, remembrance, and
teaching, provides invaluable
contributions to programming
in institutions such as the Maltz
Museum via loaned exhibitions,
educational materials, and expertise.
It was of great importance to us to
support the building of the Shapell
Family Collections, Conservation
and Research Center. This repository
for priceless artifacts, first-person
testimonies, and other evidence of
the Holocaust—which nearly 80 years
after the end of World War II urgently
needs collecting and preserving—
becomes increasingly crucial with
each passing day. More recently, we
have chosen to endow the Museum’s
exhibition program to keep the
stories that these artifacts tell alive
and resonating well into the future.”
SAFEGUARDING TRUTH FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS l 47