Past Exhibitions

TREASURED BELONGINGS: THE HAHN FAMILY & THE SEARCH FOR A STOLEN LEGACY

November 2019 – June 2022

Treasured Belongings Teachers' GuideBorn in Göttingen, Germany in 1880, Max Hahn was a successful businessman, civic leader and passionate collector. The Hahn family’s Judaica collection was one of the most prominent private collections of its time.

After Max was arrested during the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938, the Nazis stripped the family of their property and possessions. While their children, Rudolf (later Roger Hayden) and Hanni, were sent to England for safety in 1939, Max and Gertrud were deported to Riga in December 1941, where they ultimately perished. Most of the collection was never recovered.

This original exhibition brought together archival items, artefacts and interviews to detail the story of the Hahn family, their collection, and their descendants’ restitution efforts. Involving extensive research and intensive negotiations with German museums and archives, the family’s ongoing search for their stolen collection speaks to timely themes of cultural loss, reconciliation and intergenerational legacy.

Exhibition supported by Michael and Sandy Hayden and children, the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Vancouver, the Isaac and Sophie Waldman Endowment Fund of the Vancouver Foundation, Isaac and Judy Thau, Yosef Wosk, Audre Jackson, and the Goldie and Avrum Miller Memorial Endowment Fund of the VHEC.

EXHIBITION VIDEO TOUR

Made possible through the generous support of the Diamond Foundation.

IN FOCUS: THE HOLOCAUST THROUGH THE VHEC COLLECTION

June 2018 – July 2019

In Focus: The Holocaust Through the VHEC Collection brings to the forefront more than 80 artefacts and archival records, many from the VHEC’s archives and museum collections. Most of these artefacts were donated by local Holocaust survivors, eyewitnesses and their families. In Focus provides an opportunity to learn about the Holocaust through the powerful lens of individual experience: each artefact tells a personal story. Simultaneously, the exhibition speaks to the universal themes of Holocaust study.

In Focus offers multiple entry points for visitors to engage with artefacts. Alongside the visual display of items, three touch-screen kiosks provide an opportunity to access digital information related to seven artefacts on display. The digital caption content provides information about 75 additional items including 31 testimony excerpts. Reproductions of 11 selected collection pieces offer a hands-on learning experience.

Supported by The Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia | Canada 150: Celebrating B.C. Communities and their Contributions to Canada grant program; the Government of Canada through Western Economic Diversification Canada; the Leon Judah Blackmore Foundation; London Drugs; Coast Hotels; Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Vancouver; Dr. Robert & Marilyn Krell; Leon (z’l) & Evelyn Kahn and Family; Isaac & Judy Thau; Jody & Harvey Dales; Birgit Westergaard & Norman Gladstone; the Ben & Esther Dayson Charitable Foundation; Rabbi Yosef Wosk; Bob Markin & Ralph Markin; and the Lohn Foundation.

FACES OF SURVIVAL: PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARISSA ROTH

June 2018 – August 2019

For Faces of Survival, the VHEC commissioned 40 portraits of local Holocaust survivors, VHEC volunteers and survivor speakers, both past and present. Photographer Marissa Roth is an internationally published, Pulitzer Prize-winning freelance photojournalist and documentary photographer.

The photographs depict survivors in a distinct and powerful way. The close-up portraits, in particular the eyes of the survivors, evoke pain, loss and suffering. They also express kindness, hope, resilience and the victory of the human spirit. Posthumous portraits of survivors may include the presence of both the survivor and their descendants, and reflect on the intergenerational aspects of Holocaust remembrance and education.

The survivors featured in the exhibition are among the last remaining eyewitnesses of the Shoah. As they share their experiences and reflections with students and the general public, the survivors serve as a bridge to places and times in the past, and offer insights with tremendous relevance for the present day.

CANADA RESPONDS TO THE HOLOCAUST, 1944–45

October 16, 2016 – June 30, 2017

Canada Responds to the Holocaust, 1944–45 explores interactions between Canadians in Europe and survivors of the Holocaust at the close of the Second World War and in the immediate postwar era. It follows members of the Canadian military—soldiers, chaplains, official photographers and war artists—who fought in the Allied campaigns in Europe, as well as journalists and aid workers, as they encountered and struggled to respond to evidence of Nazi atrocities.

This original exhibition, produced by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, has been researched and written by Richard Menkis and Ronnie Tessler, with Bergen-Belsen panels by Mark Celinscak.

Produced by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and funded by the Government of Canada.

OPEN HEARTS – CLOSED DOORS:
THE WAR ORPHANS PROJECT

March 1, 2016 – June 29, 2016

Open Hearts – Closed Doors tells the story of the arrival in Canada of 1,123 Jewish children orphaned by the Holocaust. It chronicles the lives of these children as they emerged from the Holocaust into Displaced Persons (DP) camps and orphanages, and eventually to the ships that would lead them to new lives in Canada. It also tells the story of the efforts of Jewish organizations and international agencies that helped identify these children and bring them to Canada. The exhibition speaks to the efforts of Jewish social workers, members of the Jewish community and Jewish foster families who cared for them after their arrival. The project, which presents the documents, photographs and individual stories of the war orphans, attests to the power of communities to act and make a difference.

Originally developed by and presented at the VHEC in 1997, the Open Hearts – Closed Doors teaching exhibition is being re-presented to provide opportunities for visitors to engage with Canadian immigration policies from a historical perspective, using case studies of Holocaust survivors from the local community.

Supported by the Isaac and Sophie Waldman Endowment Fund, held at the Vancouver Foundation.

THE FACE OF THE GHETTO:
PICTURES TAKEN BY JEWISH PHOTOGRAPHERS IN THE LITZMANNSTADT GHETTO, 1940–1944

May 14, 2015 – December 18 2015

The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, in partnership with the German Consulate General in Vancouver, is proud to present the teaching exhibit, The Face of the Ghetto: Pictures Taken by Jewish Photographers in the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, 1940–1944. 

Following the invasion of Poland in 1939, the Nazis imposed a ghetto in the city of Lodz, which they renamed Litzmannstadt. From 1940 to 1944, more than 180,000 Jews and 5,000 Roma and Sinti lived in the cramped quarters, with many working in factories that supported the war effort.

A handful of Jewish photographers, commissioned by the local Jewish Council, took photographs of life inside the ghetto. While instructed to document the productivity of the war industry for the Nazis, the photographers—at great personal risk—also captured intimate moments of family, childhood and community.

Drawing from a collection of 12,000 images that reveal the resilience and dignity of those imprisoned in the Lodz Ghetto, this travelling exhibition from the Topography of Terror Foundation offers a rare glimpse into daily life during the Holocaust.

An exhibition of the Topography of Terror Foundation, Berlin. Supported by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Vancouver.

CARL LUTZ AND THE LEGENDARY GLASS HOUSE IN BUDAPEST

October 22, 2014 – March 13, 2015

After the Nazi invasion of Hungary on March 19, 1944, 825,000 Hungarian Jews came under attack. Swiss Vice-Consul Carl Lutz issued thousands of safe passes and provided asylum to Jews threatened with deportation inside the Glass House, the site of a former glass factory. Lutz became the first Swiss national honoured as “Righteous Among the Nations” for the rescue of 62,000 Jews.

Presented on the 70th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Hungary, the VHEC’s teaching exhibition Carl Lutz and the Legendary Glass House in Budapest illustrates a little-known story of diplomatic rescue and moral courage during the Holocaust in Hungary. The travelling exhibit, on loan from the Carl Lutz Foundation in Budapest, is enlivened by a VHEC-produced companion exhibit, which contextualizes Lutz’s rescue efforts through the testimony and artefacts of local Hungarian Holocaust survivors.

Carl Lutz and the Legendary Glass House in Budapest travelling exhibition produced by the Carl Lutz Foundation in Budapest. Presented in partnership with the Consulate General of Switzerland.

ANNE FRANK: A HISTORY FOR TODAY

January 27, 2014 – August 29, 2014

On her 13th birthday, Anne Frank receives a diary as a gift. Just weeks later her family enters into hiding in Amsterdam. For more than two years, Anne carefully records her thoughts, feelings, and observations in her now-iconic diary, one of the most widely read books in the world today. Through photos, narratives, and artefacts, Anne Frank: A History for Today illuminates the effect of National Socialism on one Jewish family, and explores the legacy of this history for all Canadians.

The program also features Out of the Archive, A Companion to Anne Frank: A History for Today. The photographs, documents and objects in this exhibition attest to the power of authentic artefacts to communicate an understanding of the past. Just as Anne Frank’s narrative emerges from the survival of her diary, this exhibition draws from the VHEC’s archival collection to provide insight into the lived experience of donors and their families before, during and after the Holocaust.

Anne Frank: A History for Today exhibition produced by The Anne Frank House. Supported by the Consulate of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Isaac and Sophie Waldman Endowment Fund of the Vancouver Foundation, and Ralph Markin & Bob Markin, in honour of a dear friend, Leslie Spiro z”l.

NAZI PERSECUTION OF HOMOSEXUALS 1933–1945

October 30, 2013 – December 2, 2013

The VHEC, in partnership with Egale Canada Human Rights Trust, is proud to host the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibit, Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933–1945. The acclaimed exhibition explores the Third Reich’s efforts at destroying all internal biological threats to the “Aryan” nation’s health, including homosexual males. Thousands of men were arrested and interned in prisons and concentration camps, leading to the imprisonment and deaths of thousands of homosexual males.

Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933–1945 was produced by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s exhibitions program is supported in part by the Lester Robbins and Sheila Johnson Robbins Traveling and Special Exhibitions Fund established in 1990.

Co-presented by the VHEC and Egale Canada Human Rights Trust.

“ENEMY ALIENS”: THE INTERNMENT OF JEWISH REFUGEES IN CANADA, 1940–1943

June 12, 2012 – October 11, 2013

Alfred Bader’s internment shirt from Camp I (Île-aux-Noix, Quebec), circa 1940–1941. Bader arrived in Canada on-board the SS Sobieski and was interned for fifteen months before his sponsored release on November 2, 1941. After attending Queen’s University, Bader became a noted chemist, businessman and collector of fine art. —Courtesy Alfred Bader

As Nazi Germany drew the world into war, Canada’s discriminatory immigration policies denied entry to those seeking refuge, particularly Jews. In 1940, when Canada agreed to Britain’s request to aid the war effort by taking in “enemy aliens” and prisoners of war, it did not expect to also receive approximately 2,300 civilian refugees from Nazism, most of them Jews.

These men, many between the ages of 16 and 20, had found asylum in Britain only to be arrested under the suspicion that there were spies in their midst. After a brief period of internment in England, they were deported to Canada and imprisoned in New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec alongside political refugees and, in some camps, avowed Nazis.

Although the British soon admitted their mistake, Canada, saddled with refugees it did not want, settled into a policy of inertia regarding their welfare, their status, and their release. Antisemitic immigration policy and public sentiment precluded opening Canada’s doors to Jews, and that included through the “back door” of internment.

The refugees faced the injustice of internment with remarkable resilience and strived to make the most of their time behind barbed wire. Meanwhile, Canada’s Jewish community worked with other refugee advocates in an effort to secure freedom for the “camp boys.”

Through eyewitness testimony and artefacts, this exhibition illustrates a little-known chapter in Canadian history. The internees’ journey—from fascist Europe to refuge in England, imprisonment by Britain and Canada and eventual release—is a bittersweet tale of survival during the Holocaust.

Generously funded by the Community Historical Recognition Program of the Department of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Canada.

Supported by the Oasis Foundation, the Ben and Esther Dayson Charitable Foundation, the Kahn Family Foundation, the Isaac and Sophie Waldman Endowment Fund of the Vancouver Foundation and Frank Koller.

THE WARTIME ESCAPE:
MARGRET AND H.A. REY’S JOURNEY FROM FRANCE

October 17, 2011 – November 30, 2011

Allan Drummond, Escape from Paris, 2005, courtesy Allan Drummond and Institute for Holocaust Education, Omaha, NE. Image courtesy ExhibitsUSA.

The Wartime Escape tells the story of the five month odyssey by bike, train, and boat that brought the creators of Curious George, Margret and H.A. Rey, from the heart of Nazi-occupied France to safety in the United States.

A program of ExhibitsUSA, a national division of Mid-America Arts Alliance and the National Endowment of the Arts


IAN PENN, PROJECTIONS: A MONUMENT TO PERSONAL MEMORY

June 30, 2011 – September 16, 2011

“Violet,” sepia ink on rag paper
—Courtesy Ian Penn

The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre proudly presents the first solo exhibition of Vancouver-based artist Ian Penn.

Ian Penn, Projections: A Monument to Personal Memory, Penn explores memory and post-memory—the Second Generation’s relationship to the Holocaust—through drawing, video, photography and sculpture. Portraits of elderly women composed of drawings overlaid with video testimony consider how individuals affected by traumatic events project their past in the present. A companion piece composed of family photographs transformed with wax from melted Shabbat candles addresses the complexity of heritage, ritual and remembrance. Penn’s monument—consisting of two distinct but interrelated installations, the surrounding space punctured by sculptures of parchment paper—suggests a mode of exhibition and commemoration in which the historical and archival, as well as the personal and familiar, are essential for understanding.

Ian Penn was born and raised in Australia, of Holocaust survivor parents. A medical degree and career in interventional cardiology was bookmarked by the study of philosophy and political science and, more recently, fine art. Penn has practiced medicine, taught, researched, and invented medical devices that assist in the care of many. From 1992 to 2000, Penn was the Director of Interventional Cardiology at Vancouver General Hospital. He has published over 120 abstracts and articles and has an active art practice. Upon graduating from Emily Carr University in 2010, Penn received the Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver Emerging Artist Award (Visual Arts).

A companion book was launched at the opening reception and is available for purchase from the VHEC.

ALBANIAN MUSLIM RESCUERS DURING THE HOLOCAUST

November 8, 2010 – April 15, 2011

Baba Haxha Dede Reshat Bardhi, leader of the Bektashi sect.
—Courtesy of Eye Contact Foundation

The exhibition features portraits of Albanian Muslim rescuers and their descendants by American photographer Norman H. Gershman. When asked why they had rescued Jews, their resounding response was “Besa,” a code of honour linked to an Albanian folk principle of taking responsibility for others in their time of need. The stories of the Albanian rescuers featured in this exhibition offer insights into the actions of the few who had the courage to resist the Nazis.

Produced by Hebrew Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion Museum, New York © 2008


MORE THAN JUST GAMES:
CANADA & THE 1936 OLYMPICS

September 2009 – June 2010

The 1936 Olympics were held in Nazi Germany at a critical juncture between the building of the racial state and the Holocaust. The world faced a decision about whether to participate in these controversial games. Canadian athletes, particularly young Jewish athletes, were caught in a dilemma. Should they follow their dreams to the world’s greatest athletic competition or should they boycott the 1936 Olympics?

Exhibition Curators:  Frieda Miller & Nina Krieger
Writing & Research: Richard Menkis & Harold Troper
Design: Kazuko Kusumoto
Research Assistance: Alia Dharssi, Manori Ravindran & Michael Schwartz

Supported by Diamond Family Endowment Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation, Faigen Charitable Foundation of the Jewish Community Foundation, Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Vancouver, Lohn Foundation, Lutsky Family Foundation, Edward & Emily McWhinney Foundation, Oasis Foundation, Pekarsky Family Foundation, Al Roadburg Foundation, Vancouver Foundation, Wertman Development Corporation, Zacks Family Foundation, Chaim Zbar Foundation

Community Partners: Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, Green College Visiting Professorships Program at UBC

View Online Exhibition

FRAMING BODIES:
SPORT & SPECTACLE IN NAZI GERMANY

September 2009 – June 2010

Framing Bodies: Sport and Spectacle in Nazi Germany explores the relationship between athletics, politics and visual culture during the 1936 Games.

Created by: Nina Krieger & Frieda Miller

Writting & Research by: Nina Krieger & Birga U. Meyer
Design: Kazuko Kusumoto
Research Assistance: Manori Ravindran

Supported by the Diamond Family Endowment Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation, Faigen Charitable Foundation of the Jewish Community Foundation, Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Vancouver, Lohn Foundation, Lutsky Family Foundation, Edward & Emily McWhinney Foundation, Oasis Foundation, Pekarsky Family Foundation, Al Roadburg Foundation, Vancouver Foundation, Wertman Development Corporation, Zacks Family Foundation, Chaim Zbar Foundation

Community Partners: Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, Green College Visiting Professorships Program at UBC


IN DEFIANCE: JEWISH RESISTANCE DURING THE HOLOCAUST

October 23, 2009 – September 2009
Documentary traces of the Holocaust—including diaries, letters, clandestine wartime publications and post-war eyewitness narratives—illustrate the range of Jewish reactions to Nazi efforts to annihilate the Jewish people. As Nazi power expanded across Europe, Jews responded actively to changing circumstances. They participated in individual and collective resistance in ghettos, in slave labour camps and even in concentration camps. While some took part in armed resistance, others acted in the arena of daily life. Jews fought to survive and helped others to survive. They tried to perpetuate their culture in the face of attempted erasure and struggled to maintain their dignity in the face of dehumanization. Jews forged identity documents, observed religious holidays and rituals and organized clandestine schools for children.

The significance of such acts of defiance must be considered against the obstacles that made resistance to the Nazis both difficult and dangerous. Given the conditions Jews faced, perhaps what is surprising is not how little resistance there was, but rather how much.

In Defiance draws on artefacts and testimonies of survivors who settled in Canada after the war. The stories of Adele Balla, Leon Kahn, Sara Rozenberg-Warm, Rebecca Teitelbaum and Rudolf Vrba speak to the diversity of Jewish responses to Nazism. Their actions reflect Jewish efforts to maintain their humanity, preserve their past, sabotage Nazi war efforts, document unimaginable events and save lives.

Exhibition Curators: Frieda Miller, Nina Krieger
Research by: Michael Schwartz
Design: Shawna Romain

With funding from the Isaac & Sophie Waldman Endowment Fund of the Vancouver Foundation

Special thanks to Alex Buckman, Iris Cohen, John Conway, Chris Friedrichs, Saul Kahn, Ruth Linn, Robin Vrba and the family of Sarah Rozenberg-Warm for their assistance with this project.

THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE & THE HOLOCAUST:
ONE MAN TAKES A STAND

Armin T. Wegner & the Armenians in Anatolia, 1915–1916

January 26, 2009 – May 22, 2009

Armin T. Wegner (1886–1978) witnessed and documented the Armenian genocide while serving in the German army during the First World War and later became exiled from Nazi Germany. This remarkable collection of images of Armenian deportation camps speaks to the possibilities of photography as a form of resistance. A prolific writer and activist, Wegner campaigned for Armenian and Jewish human rights between the wars. In April 1933 he authored an impassioned plea to Adolf Hitler on behalf of the Jews of Germany. His act of protest and subsequent imprisonment in several Nazi concentration camps prompted Yad Vashem to honour Wegner as Righteous Among the Nations.

Armin T. Wegner & the Armenians in Anatolia, 1915–1916, a traveling exhibition produced by the Armin T. Wegner Society, was presented in Vancouver by the Armenian National Committee of Canada and the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre

SCREAM THE TRUTH AT THE WORLD:
EMANUEL RINGELBLUM AND THE HIDDEN ARCHIVE OF THE WARSAW GHETTO

October 23, 2008 – December 18, 2008

Recognizing that the events unfolding around him in Europe in September of 1939 were unprecedented and required careful documentation and preservation, Warsaw historian Emanuel Ringelblum and a group code-named Oyneg Shabbes (Joy of Sabbath) collected and buried material relating to their experiences: reports on the deportation and murder of Jews, ghetto ephemera, photographs, children’s school essays and works of art. These artefacts were recovered in the rubble of the Warsaw ghetto in 1946 and represent the most important source for, and testimony to, the destruction of the Polish Jewry.

Traveling exhibition produced by the Museum of Jewish Heritage, A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, New York and presented in Vancouver with support from the American Society for Jewish Heritage in Poland.

NUREMBERG: JUSTICE IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE HOLOCAUST

October 2007 – July 2008

Over 60 years after the Allies established the International Military Tribunal to try Nazi leaders for their roles in the systematic murder of millions of people during the Holocaust and Second World War, the Nuremberg trials stand as a watershed moment in the ongoing pursuit of international justice. Nuremberg: Justice in the Aftermath of the Holocaust traces the history of the trials, highlighting their accomplishments, controversies and legacies, and considers human rights issues that demand response and resolve from the international community today.

The online Nuremberg exhibition offers access to documents related to the pursuit of justice in the aftermath the Holocaust. Accompanying classroom support material guides student discussion and activities about the Nuremberg trials and their ongoing implications.

View Online Exhibition

Exhibition Curators: Frieda Miller, Nina Krieger & Vanessa Sorenson
Design: Denys Yuen

With funding from the Law Foundation of British Columbia
Special thanks to Reva Adler, Paula Brook, Chris Friedrichs & Manu Kabahizi

LAWYERS WITHOUT RIGHTS: THE FATE OF JEWISH LAWYERS IN GERMANY AFTER 1933

October 2007 – December 2007
Vancouver & Victoria

Imagine what would happen if half of BC’s lawyers were summarily disbarred, the legal system transformed into an instrument of tyranny and the rule of law disappeared. If individual rights and freedoms were threatened, who would stand up to protect them? Lawyers Without Rights chronicles the fate of Jewish lawyers before and during the Holocaust reminds BC lawyers and citizens what can happen when politics interfere with the right to justice.
When the Nazis came to power in 1933 there were 19,276 lawyers in Germany, almost half of whom were considered to be Jewish according to Nazi racial ideology. On November 30, 1938, Jews were officially banned from practicing law. All lost their profession, most of them lost their country and a large number lost their lives.

Produced by the German Federal Bar and the German Jurists Association.
Presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Law Society of British Columbia, the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany Vancouver.

With funding from the Law Foundation of British Columbia
With support from the University of Victoria and SFU Harbour Centre

VANCOUVER’S SCHINDLER JEWS

October 2006 – August 2007

Vancouver’s Schindler Jews presents the story of Oskar Schindler, who rescued over 1,000 Jews during the Holocaust, through the unique perspective of four Schindlerjuden who later immigrated to Canada and found new lives in Vancouver. The exhibition is based on the personal narratives, documents, photographs and artefacts of the four Schindler survivors—Else Dunner, Bernard Goldberg and Esther and Leon Kaufman—ensuring that their unique voices will not be lost.

Click here for more information or to rent the travelling exhibition.

Exhibition Curators: Frieda Miller & Nina Krieger
Design: Denys Yuen
Research: Danielle Ames & Gabrielle Moser

SHOES OF MEMORY: HOLOCAUST CERAMIC WORK

by Jenny Stolzenberg
February 2006 – September 2006

The seventy pairs of ceramic shoes that make up Shoes of Memory echo the piles of shoes, clothing, hair, glasses and suitcases found in the warehouses of Auschwitz at liberation and evoke the memory those who perished.

Meticulously researched and rendered in clay, Stolzenberg’s shoes return a sense of identity to the victims of the Holocaust by rescuing the shoes from their anonymity in the piles at Auschwitz.

This exhibition marked the first showing of Stolzenberg’s work in North America.

Ceramics: Jenny Stolzenberg
Exhibition Curator: Roberta Kremer
Design: Sarah Ruediger

QUESTIONABLE ISSUE: CURRENCY OF THE HOLOCAUST

Fall 2005

Questionable Issue: Currency of the Holocaust is a travelling exhibition produced by the Holocaust Museum Houston. It consists of eighty-five pieces of scrip (currency) issued at thirteen Nazi concentration camps or ghettos, including Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald and the Warsaw ghetto. Artefacts were loaned from the Charlton E. Meyer Jr. and Gloria B. Meyer collection of the Holocaust Museum Houston. The currencies of the Nazi-imposed camps and ghettos of World War II attest to the extent of the tragedy of the Holocaust.

Produced by the Holocaust Museum Houston

Educational Programming: Dan Fromowitz

FACES OF LOSS: REMEMBERING THOSE WHO PERISHED

Spring 2005

Faces of Loss: Remembering Those Who Perished focused on the victims of the Holocaust, whose families later immigrated to Canada and lived in Vancouver. Families touched by the Holocaust loaned their precious few pre-war photographs of family members. In many cases, no photographs remain of those who perished. This exhibition serves to remember and mourn these victims, while restoring the human, personal element to what has become an abstraction of numbers.

Exhibition Curator: Roberta Kremer
Research & Development: Naomi Seixas, Jonathan Friedrichs & Rosa Sevy
Educational Materials: Frieda Miller
Graphic Design: Sarah Ruediger
Website Development: Sarah Ruediger & Jeff MacKenzie

With support from Starbucks, L’Chaim Catering, Harvey Sandler, and the members of the community who lent photographs of their family.

ANNE FRANK: A HISTORY FOR TODAY

Fall 2004

Anne Frank is an icon, a myth and a memory. Her story is a warning, a reminder and an inspiration. Her diary is one of the most widely read books in the world. Anne Frank: A History For Today  presents Anne Frank’s story in words, still photos and moving images. The multi-media display juxtaposes photographs of the Frank family with documentation of events of the time. The story of Anne Frank’s life and death remains relevant as children and other innocent civilians continue to be the targets of violence, war and conflict today.

This travelling exhibition was developed by the Anne Frank Center in New York

Produced by the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and sponsored in North America by the Anne Frank Center USA, New York

With support from Vancouver Kidsbooks, the Gordon Diamond Family Foundation, the Conference on Material Claims Against Germany, and the Rabbi Israel Miller Fund for Shoah Research.

Documentation and Education: Susan Mendelson & Jack Lutsky, Miriam Wosk, the City of Vancouver, JC Decaux.

THE POST WAR PHOTOGRAPHS OF HENRY RIES:
ROTHSCHILD HOSPITAL & EXODUS 1947

Summer 2004

These photos tell the story of waiting; they speak of coming and going. But waiting is the true agony of the DPs.
—Henry Ries

The Post War Photographs of Henry Ries presents thirty-five photographs from New York Times photojournalist Henry Ries documenting the Rothschild Hospital Displaced Person (DP) camp and the return of the Exodus 1947 passengers to Germany. The exhibition captures these two powerful moments in the lives of Jews who had survived the Shoah only to find themselves with no place to call home in the aftermath of the Holocaust. These photographs attest to the dislocation and the waiting of the DP’s as they pondered their future and came to grips with their past.

This exhibition was originally produced in German by Galerie Bilderwelt, Berlin in 2002 and has been shown in Graz and Mödling (Austria). Reinhard Schultz of Galerie Bilderwelt provided images for the English language exhibition.

LIGHT ONE CANDLE: A CHILD’S DIARY OF THE HOLOCAUST

Spring 2004

Light One Candle: A Child’s Diary of the Holocaust is a photographic exhibition based on the lost secret diary of a young Jewish boy, Solly Ganor, who survived the Kovno ghetto, a slave labour camp and a death march from Dachau. Ganor’s story is interwoven with the tales of the remarkable rescue efforts of the Japanese Consul to Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara, and the liberation of Dachau concentration camp by the Japanese-American 522nd Field Artillery Battalion. The exhibition, curated by Eric Saul from the Visas For Life Foundation, includes over forty-six photographs by Zvi Kadushin (George Kadish). Kadish was an amateur photographer and one of only two Jewish photographers who documented conditions during the Holocaust. His photographs transport the visitor into the crushing life of the Kovno ghetto and provide a chilling echo to Ganor’s riveting text.

Curated by Eric Saul in Cooperation with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Yad Vashem Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, and YIVO, New York

Sponsored by the Carol Klein Family

Exhibition design and production contributions from VisaulWorks, Andrea Fong, Wansick Graphics, Nancy Wansick, DB2002, Tom Morrison, Graphics Resource, Kirk Anspach, Hankins-Koppel Company, Don Koppel, Yukiko Sugihara, Nobuki Sugihara, Amy Fiske, Carol Klein, Jackson Klein, Zalman Mowszowski, Lani Silver and Mark Vaz.

SILENT VOICES SPEAK: PAINTINGS

By Barbara Shilo

Fall 2003

In Silent Voices Speak: Remembering the Holocaust, artist and child survivor Barbara Shilo depicts significant moments during the Holocaust through a series of mixed media paintings. Based on black and white documentary photographs, the paintings manipulate the original images for dramatic effect through the use of colour, proportion, repetition and depth. Some rely heavily on the documentary images, while others take more artistic license to connect viewers emotionally with the images portrayed, which reflect the themes of children in the Holocaust, the Warsaw ghetto uprising, deportation, death camps, death marches and liberation.

Chair and Funder of the project: Phyllis Friedman
Archival photographs provided by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC
Designer and Supervisor: Robert R. LeRoy
With contributions from Roslyn Tunis, Sara Glaser, Midge Fox, Laura Talmus, Lani Silver, Vivian and Ovadio Kalev Creative Litho, Bruce Shippee, Mark Monchek and Pete Monchek.

RAVENSBRÜCK:
THE FORGOTTEN WOMEN OF THE HOLOCAUST

Spring 2003

Ravensbrück was a unique concentration camp; built exclusively to house female prisoners, it had the highest percentage of murdered prisoners of any concentration camp in Germany. Yet Ravensbrück, and the women imprisoned there, remain relatively unknown. Ravensbrück: Forgotten Women of the Holocaust, is the first VHEC exhibition to focus on the victimization of women during the Holocaust. By reproducing the drawings, poetry and even a recipe book made by the women inmates, the exhibition examines the strategies women used to survive: friendship and solidarity among the inmates and their determined resistance to the destruction of mind and spirit through creative and intellectual activities.

Produced by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre in association with Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück, Furstenberg, Germany.

Curated by Dr. Roberta Kremer & Scott Anderson
Exhibition design: Metaform Communications
Editorial and text support: Jennifer Douglas

With support from the Conference on Material Claims Against Germany, the Women’s Endowment Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Vancouver, the Bertha Fraeme Endowment Fund of the VHEC, Carole & Lucien Lieberman and Eddie & Debbie Rozenberg.

KORCZAK AND THE CHILDREN OF THE WARSAW GHETTO

Fall 2002

Janusz Korczak was one of the world’s first advocates of children’s rights. On August 6, 1942 he became a heroic figure. On that day, this famous and beloved doctor, writer and educator was forced by the Nazis to gather together the two hundred orphans under his care in the Warsaw ghetto and report for deportation. Refusing all offers for his own rescue, he led the children with quiet dignity to the tram that would take them to their deportation to Treblinka, an extermination camp where they were murdered. Janusz Korczak & The Children of the Warsaw Ghetto examines the life of Janusz Korczak, the experiences and tragic fate of the children in the Warsaw ghetto and looks at how the violation of children’s rights during the Holocaust is reflected in the global fight for children’s rights in the world today.

Sponsored by the Eugene, Alice and Paul Meyer and Edwina and Paul Heller Endowment Funds of the VHEC.

The Life of Janusz Korczak curated by Scott Anderson, Research Assistant
Children of the Warsaw Ghetto curated by Roberta Kremer, Executive Director
Children’s Rights Today curated by Frieda Miller, Education Coordinator

Graphic & Poster Design: Sean Matvenko
Editorial and text support: Jennifer Douglas
Research assistance: Olga Medvedeva, and The Janusz Korczak Association of Canada
Images courtesy of: the Ghetto Fighters’ Musuem (Israel) and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Click here for more information or to rent the travelling exhibition

MAY 31, 1944

Summer 2002

May 31, 1944 was a significant date in the lives of many European Jews. For Isabelle Leitner, it was the day that her family, who were deported from Hungary, arrived in Auschwitz. On May 31, 1944 another group of fortunate Jewish refugees arrived in Philadelphia on a refugee ship that had been stopped mid-ocean by the Germans. Upon their arrival in the US, seventy-four Jewish refugees were taken by train to Canada. On that same day, the Gestapo arrested twenty-eight Jewish children and their young guide who were caught trying to cross the border from France to safety in Switzerland. Included in the exhibition was an art folio created by book artist Philip Gallo and artist Gerson Leiber, May 31, 1944 incorporates illustrations, photos and survivor testimony to examine some of the events on this date in order to show the interrelatedness of seemingly unconnected events during the Holocaust.

Created and Curated by Roberta Kremer and Scott Anderson

Sponsored by the Christopher Foundation, Mordecai and Hana Wosk Family Fund for Education and the Eugene, Alice and Paul Meyer Fund of the VHEC.

LIFE UNWORTHY OF LIFE:
THE EUTHANASIA CRIMES AT HADAMAR

Spring 2002

Between 1939 and 1945, between 100,000 and 200,000 people fell victim to the Nazi “euthanasia” policy. The policy decreed that men, women and children who suffered from mental illness, who lived with diseases such as tuberculosis and alcoholism, or who were labeled Jewish half-breeds were “unworthy of life.”Life Unworthy of Life: The Euthanasia Crimes at Hadamar tells the disturbing story of one of these so-called “euthanasia” killing centres: the Hadamar institution in Germany. More than 10,000 mentally and physically disabled men, women and children were murdered by medical practitioners at Hadamar as a direct result of Nazi racial policies. The exhibition raises ethical questions about some controversial areas of genetic research today.

Produced from the German exhibition produced by Hadamar Memorial Site, Historische Schriftenreihe des Landeswohlfahrtsverbandes Hessen, Germany.

Original German-language exhibit: Dr. Christina Vanya, Hadamar Memorial Site
Revised English text: Nina Krieger and Dr. Roberta Kremer
Research: Nina Krieger, Scott Anderson
Editing: Jennifer Douglas
Design: Metaform Communications, Susan Mavor & Isabelle Swiderski
Publicity: Sean Matvenko
Education: Frieda Miller

WHAT WORDS COULD NOT EXPRESS:
ART BY SURVIVORS PIECK, ESTHER LURIE AND JANINA TOLLIK

Summer 2001

Some works of art that were secretly produced during the Holocaust managed to survive the devastation that they sought to record. These sketches and drawings speak of the hardships, horrors and simple acts of humanity of the time. They attest to the courage of artists who used lines on paper as acts of resistance. What Words Could Not Express brings together the work of three such artists for the first time. The Dutch artist Henri Pieck captured his experiences as a political prisoner of Buchenwald, while Esther Lurie documented life behind the barbed wire fence of the Kovno ghetto, and the Polish artist and member of the resistance movement Janina Tollik recorded the brutality of Auschwitz. Together, these works are unmatched in the power of their imagery.

TOO CLOSE TO HOME:
NAZISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM IN CANADA

Spring 2001

Too Close to Home: Nazism and Anti-Semitism in Canada draws attention to a painful and shameful part of Canadian history during the 1930s and 1940s. Anti-semitism was pervasive at the time and was reflected in the attitudes of both individual citizens and government policies. It found expression in stereotyping, newspaper headlines, political cartooning, immigration quotas and the policies of exclusion that restricted admission to universities and professions. The period also saw the emergence of Nativist, Nazi and other Fascist groups across the country, from Adrien Arcand’s National Social Christian Party in Quebec, to the Toronto Swastika Clubs and the Manitoba Brown Shirts.

Curated by: Roberta Kremer, Frieda Miller & Nina Krieger
Research and background: Nina Krieger and Cecilia Kalaw
Graphic design: Sean Matvenko
Production: UNO Digital
Installation: Valerie Thai & Roger Allen
Photo credits: Canadian Jewish Congress National Archives, National Archives of Canada
Private collections of Charles Hou, Don Stewart of MacLeod’s Books and Wendy Oberlander

PORTRAITS OF OUR PAST: GREECE AND THE HOLOCAUST

Fall 2000

When one thinks of the Holocaust, one usually thinks of Germany, Austria, and Poland; yet the reach of Nazism and the destruction of Jewish communities reached much farther, to places such as Greece and Rhodes, where it had devastating effects on both the Jewish and non-Jewish populations. The photographic exhibition Portraits of our Past documents the impact of the Holocaust in Greece through the themes of Jewish presence in Greece, Sephardic pre-war heritage, the destruction of communities during the Holocaust, and the post-war rehabilitation of survivors. The photographs, collected from private sources, convey the passing of centuries-old Jewish communities, including Salonica, Athens, Kastoria, Kavala, Jannina and Rhodes, and bear silent witness to their once-vibrant culture.

Developed by the Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture, with the section on Rhodes curated by Roberta Kremer and Nina Krieger.

INDIFFERENCE:
THE SUR-RATIONAL PAINTINGS OF FRITZ HIRSCHBERGER

Summer 2000

Indifference: The Sur-Rational Paintings of Fritz Hirschberger is an exhibition made up of twenty paintings of intense colour and sentiment by contemporary artist and survivor Fritz Hirschberger. Accompanied by text that illuminates, explains or complements the work, his paintings are meant to counteract indifference and to confront viewers with perplexing and disturbing questions. Hirschberger, who lost most of his family, could not approach the Shoah as a subject of his art until well into his sixties. When he began to work on this topic, he did intensive research, and remains committed to historical accuracy and to presenting a human side to the tragedy by capturing individual moments.

FRAGMENTS:
PERSONAL ARTEFACTS OF LOCAL HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS

Spring 2000

Fragments: Personal Artefacts of Local Holocaust Survivors features authentic artefacts from the collection of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, each with a unique and powerful story to tell. Most of the objects—ranging from a yellow star, to ghetto money, to forged documents—were displayed for the first time. These objects attest to the power of artefacts to educate by raising questions about how they arrived in Canada, their meaning for survivors and their significance as documentary evidence of the Holocaust. Survivors and their documents, photographs and artefacts are inextricably linked. In many cases the survivor has taken extraordinary measures to save these fragile, tangible fragments of their history: concrete evidence that attest to the events of the Holocaust.

Supported by: Susan Quastel, the Ronnie Tessler Archives Fund, Eugene, Alice & Paul Meyer Fund.
Curator: Frieda Miller
Co-curator: Roberta Kremer
Research: Daniel Fromowitz & Ulf Wendler
Production Support: Sean Matvenko & Jennifer Fillingham
Installation: Saul Cohn, Andy Rosengarten, Valerie Thai & Daniel Wollner
Poster Design: Sarah Letkeman, Robin Mitchell & Valerie Thai

SHANGHAI: A REFUGE DURING THE HOLOCAUST

Fall 1999

Shanghai: A Refuge During the Holocaust chronicles the little-known story of the thousands of Jews who sought and found refuge in wartime Shanghai. Based on the oral histories of Shanghai-landers now living in Vancouver, the exhibition tells their stories through the use of documents and photographs. Shanghai: A Refuge During the Holocaust presents the compelling history of this special sanctuary and of those who survived through resolve, adaptability and resourcefulness.

For more information or to rent the travelling exhibit

Sponsored by BC Heritage Trust, Community Liaison Division, Ministry Responsible for Multiculturalism and Immigration, Heritage Canada, Vancouver Foundation, United Way of the Lower Mainland and Lucien & Carole Lieberman.

Programmed in association with the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver.
Written and curated by: Dr. Roberta Kremer
Exhibition design: Metaform Communications Design, Susan Mavor, David Cunningham
Oral History Curator: Dr. Roberta Kremer
Research Assistants: Daniel Fromowitz, & Theresa Ho
Chinese translation: Shi Kuan James Chen
Production support: Jennifer Fillingham, Phoebe Chow & Valerie Thai

Material for this exhibition has been generously loaned by Gerald Luxton & Lorraine Lewis, Lore Marie Wiener & Claudia Cornwall, Andy & Linda Rosengarten and Gerda Kraus & Lori Seemans. Special appreciation to the “Shanghaiers” in our community who so generously contributed their stories and materials to this project.

VISAS FOR LIFE: THE STORY OF FENG SHAN HO

This companion exhibit, curated by Eric Saul, was presented concurrently with the Shanghai exhibition. It chronicles the story of Feng Shan Ho, a diplomat rescuer who, as part of the Chinese Consulate in Vienna, issued thousands of travel visas to Jews, allowing them to escape Nazi-occupied Austria.

GESHER PROJECT

Summer 1999

The Gesher Project was a unique and innovative project undertaken by Vancouver Holocaust survivors, child survivors and adult children of survivors. They met over a six-month period in 1998 to examine the impact of the Holocaust on their lives. They explored these experiences through painting, writing and discussion assisted by facilitators Dr. Alina Wydra, Linda Dayan Frimer, Dale Adams-Segal and Reisa Schneider. The project culminated with the mounting of the Gesher exhibition. “Gesher,” the Hebrew word for bridge, reflects the project’s goal of working together to bridge the generations and to use creative approaches as a means of healing Holocaust trauma.

Participants:
Survivors
Bernard Goldberg, Frances Hoyd, Rosa Marel

Child Survivors
Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, Marianne Cassirer, Malka Pishanitskaya, Sidi Schaffer, Louise Stein-Sorensen

Second Generation
Jean Adler, Mary Adlersberg, Barbara Bluman, Nurit Fox, Robert Grosz, Andrew Jordan, Gabriella Klein, Deborah Ramm-West, Marianne Rev, Elsa Weinstein

Facilitators
Dale Adams-Segal, Linda Dayan Frimer, Reisa Schneider, Alina Wydra

BROKEN THREADS:
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE JEWISH FASHION INDUSTRY IN GERMANY AND AUSTRIA –
FROM ARYANIZATION TO CULTURAL LOSS

Spring 1999

Broken Threads presents over forty years of German fashion (1895–1938), including exquisite men’s and women’s apparel and accessories created by German and Austrian Jewish designers. The exhibition examines a unique and unexplored aspect of Holocaust history: the methodical destruction of Jewish involvement in the fashion industry. Jews had been prominent in the fashion industry in Germany and Austria for over a hundred years, but Nazism changed that forever. Forced from their homes and businesses, excluded from occupations and cultural life, Jews disappeared. Along with them went the fashion prominence of Berlin and Vienna. Beginning with the boycotts of 1933 and escalating to the expropriation of businesses, expulsions and deportations, Broken Threads is a microcosm of the larger devastation of the Holocaust.

Produced by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre in association with the Original Costume Museum Society. Programmed in partnership with the Goethe-Institut, Vancouver.

Exhibition Curators: Claus Jahnke & Roberta Kremer
Assistant Curator: Ivan Sayers, Original Costume Museum Society
Exhibition Design: John Robertson
Graphic Design: Metaform Communication Design
Script Development: Roberta Kremer & Kerry McPhedran
Research: Daniel Fromowitz & Andrea Jordan
Project Coordinator: Ronnie Tessler
Programming: Frieda Miller, Education Coordinator
Communications: Graham Sharpe

Supported by the Museums Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Reitman Family Foundation, Abe and Elaine Charkow and the Joseph Segal Family Foundation.

MAUS: A Memoir of the Holocaust

Fall 1998

MAUS: A Memoir of the Holocaust, is a multi-media exhibition based on Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book MAUS. In MAUS, Spiegelman characterizes humans as animals as he tells the disturbing story of his father Vladek’s survival in Nazi Europe and the effects that his parents’ Holocaust experiences had on his own life. The exhibit’s target audience is youth, with the intent of developing new audiences for Holocaust education. Controversial in its comic book form, MAUS remains one of the most engaging Holocaust memoirs read by high school age students and a compelling representation of this devastating period in human history and its impact on successive generations.

Curated by: Natalia Indrimi
Organized by: La Centrale dell’Arte, Rome-New York.

Supported by the United Way, the Susan Quastel Book Fund, the Robert Krell Book Fund, the BC Teacher’s Federation, VanCity and the Canadian Race Relations Foundation.

ORDER & CHAOS:
THE HOLOCAUST PAINTINGS OF PHYLLIS SEROTA

Summer 1998

In February 1997, Victoria artist Phyllis Serota began to paint images of the Holocaust. Starting with two or three images, she soon realized she had initiated a much larger project than she had originally conceived. Her work continued until she had completed the fourteen paintings, that would become Order & Chaos. The concept of “tikkun olam,” or the responsibility of the Jewish people to “repair the world” guided her; she felt that wounds must be opened and cleansed in order for healing to occur. It is in this spirit that she offers these paintings, which reveal a profoundly human identification with all those who suffered and continue to suffer the horrors of genocide.

OPEN HEARTS, CLOSED DOORS

Fall 1997 – Spring 1998

Open Hearts, Closed Doors marks the 50th anniversary of the arrival in Canada of 1,123 Jewish children orphaned by the Holocaust. It chronicles the lives of these children as they emerged from the Holocaust into DP camps and orphanages, and eventually to the ships that would lead them to new lives in Canada. It also tells the story of the efforts of Jewish organizations and international agencies, such as the Red Cross, who helped identify these children and bring them to Canada. It also speaks to the efforts of Jewish social workers, members of the Jewish community and Jewish foster families who cared for them after their arrival. The exhibit, which presents the documents, photographs, memoirs, diaries and individual stories of the war orphans, attests to the power of communities to act and make a difference.

View Online Exhibit:
English
French

Curators: Fraidie Martz, Frieda Miller & Roberta Kremer
Design Team: David Cunningham, Susan Mavor, Metaform Design & Communications

I NEVER SAW ANOTHER BUTTERFLY

Summer 1997

Based on the book compiled by editor Hana Volavkova that features drawings and poems completed by child victims of the Holocaust, I Never Saw Another Butterfly is a student exhibition of original art inspired by Pavel Friedman’s poem, The Butterfly. Organized and produced by Sentinel Secondary School art teacher Barbara Sunday and Tupper Secondary School art teacher Ed Sunday, the exhibition features images created by students that reflect their understanding of the Holocaust. The exhibition honours the memory of the 1.5 million children who died in the Holocaust and reflects on immense loss of human potential lost through this devastation.

Art by the students of Sentinel and Sir Charles Tupper Secondary Schools.

ON THE EDGE OF THE ABYSS:
DRAWINGS AS EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY

Spring 1997

Of all the eloquent and powerful survivor accounts that exist, those done in visual form—drawings or paintings—represent a unique category of Holocaust eyewitness testimony, unmatched in their direct communication of emotions and events. On the Edge of the Abyss features a collection of these visual testimonies in the form of ninety-three drawings by Holocaust survivor Ella Liebermann-Shiber. Completed after liberation and during a period of recovery and re-entry, Liebermann-Shiber’s drawings seek to document and respond to the experiences of the Holocaust from an outside perspective: documenting and commenting on events as an observer rather than as a participant in the action.

Produced by the Tampa Bay Holocaust Memorial Museum & Educational Center in cooperation with Beit Lohamei Haghetaot, The Ghetto Fighter’s House, Israel.

JUDGEMENT ON NUREMBERG:
A STUDENT MOCK TRIAL OF JULIUS STREICHER

Fall 1996

Der Stürmer (the Stormtrooper) was a virulently racist, anti-Semitic and pornographic newspaper published from 1923 to 1945. Cartoons published in Der Stürmer foreshadowed the “Final Solution:” the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews. Yet Julius Streicher, the owner and editor, never personally killed anyone or gave deportation orders. His crime was to publish what we now think of as hate literature. Through his writings and speeches he incited others to action. Or did he? In the fall of 1946 he was convicted and executed at Nuremberg. Would he have been convicted today? Judgement on Nuremburg offers students an opportunity to decide for themselves, to judge the trial’s significance for today, and to discuss current issues of hate speech on the Internet and the trials of suspected Bosnian war criminals at the International Tribunal in the Hague.

Supported by the Centre for Education, Law & Society; Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University; the Law Foundation of British Columbia; Epstein, Wood, Logie, Wexler & Maerov; Koffman, Birnie & Kalef; Mandell, Pinder, Donald J. Rosenbloom; Rush, Crane, Gunther & Adams; Alexander, Holburn, Beaudin & Lang, Barristers & Solicitors.

BUILDING BRIDGES: STUDENT ART EXHIBIT

Summer 1996

Coordinated by Vivianne Gosselin and Magee Secondary School, Building Bridges was a mural project aimed at giving high school students an opportunity to creatively express the importance of the Holocaust today. After being displayed at the VHEC, the mural was shown in other public venues in the Vancouver area.

Organized by: Vivianne Gosselin and Magee Secondary School

Supported by Point Grey Secondary school, Opus Framing & Art Supplies and Safeway Stores Ltd.

THE WARSAW GHETTO: A PICTORIAL REMEMBRANCE

Spring 1996

Created by the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland and on loan from the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education in Kansas City, The Warsaw Ghetto features fifty-seven black-and-white photographs of life in the ghetto captured by German soldier Willi Georg in 1941. In 1939, the Jewish community of Warsaw was the largest in Europe and the second largest in the world. In 1940, on Yom Kippur, the Nazis ordered the establishment of the Warsaw ghetto. Within weeks, the ghetto was sealed off from the rest of the world by a brick wall and the population swelled to 450,000. Ghetto life was a constant confrontation with death and survival demanded unflagging resourcefulness and heroic reserves of spiritual resistance, all of which are documented in this moving exhibition.

Curated by: Midwest Center for Holocaust Education
Photographs by: Willi Georg, courtesy of the Jewish Historical Institute of Warsaw

Supported by Krzysztof W. Kasprzyk, Consul General of the Republic of Poland in Vancouver, the Jewish Historical Institute of Warsaw, John Jankowiak of Marlin Travel, Sally Dimant, Susan Bluman, Alex and Gina Dimant, Paula Kirman.

VISAS FOR LIFE: CHIUNE SUGIHARA

January – March 1996

From 1933 to 1939, Jews who were able to emigrated to Palestine, the United States, Latin America and Shanghai. By 1940, the Nazis occupied most of Western Europe and had cut off most of those escape routes. Polish Jews however, were still permitted to emigrate from Lithuania through the Soviet Union, provided that they could obtain the necessary travel documents. Despite being ordered to leave, the Japanese Consul Chiune Sugihara remained in Kovno, and for twenty-nine days in 1940, sat for endless hours writing and signing visas by hand. Because of his efforts, thousands of Polish Jews with Sugihara visas survived in safety in Shanghai.

Curator: Eric Saul
Catalogue and exhibition prepared by the Holocaust Oral History Project in San Francisco, CA.

Supported by Hiroki Sugihara, David Suzuki, the Japanese Canadian Citizens Association of Greater Vancouver Human Rights Committee, the City of Vancouver Cultural Planning Department, Tama Sushi Restaurant, CBC Radio.

WE WERE CHILDREN THEN:
VANCOUVER CHILD SURVIVORS REMEMBER

Fall 1995

We Were Children Then, produced by the VHEC, presents the stories, photographs and artefacts of seventeen child survivors from the Vancouver area. The exhibition focuses on the lives of these children, their hopes, their struggles and their losses. We Were Children Then also explores the relationship between these children’s experiences during the Holocaust and the United Nations’ Declaration of the Rights of the Child, moving between the historical context and contemporary issues of racism today.

Curator: Vivianne Gosselin
Educational Programming: Frieda Miller
Supplementary exhibit, How Their Hearts Must Have Trembled: Children and the Holocaust developed by the Holocaust Resource Center and Archives, Queensborough Community College in Bayside, NY.

Supported by Multiculturalism BC, VanCity, King George Developments Corporation, Andrew Saxton, president, Mordehai & Hana Wosk Family Fund for Holocaust Education, Professor Shia Moser, The Gallery, VCR Print Ltd., Xerox Canada Ltd.

REGENERATIONS:
A TWENTY YEAR RETROSPECTIVE OF THE HOLOCAUST WORK OF NOMI KAPLAN

Fall 1995

A part of the city-wide public forum The Spectacular State: Fascism and the Modern Imagination, Regenerations features major works from local artist Nomi Kaplan, whose family fled to Canada at the start of World War II to escape the Holocaust. Incorporating photographs, rubbings from gravestones and collage and installation pieces that document and try to make sense of her experiences and family history, the exhibition is the first retrospective of Kaplan’s art. Working with materials “from her own backyard” puts Kaplan in touch with the cycles of birth, life and death. “These are universal things which affect us all, but over which we have only partial control.”

Curator: Ann Rosenberg
Exhibition design and production contributions: Michael Christopher Lawlor, Nomi Kaplan, Don Stewart, Sharyn Yuen.

FORCED EXIT: A STUDENT ART EXHIBIT

Summer 1995

Forced Exit is an exhibition of artwork by Sentinel Secondary School students inspired by a collection of deportees’ battered suitcases and organized by art teacher Barb Sunday. Student artist Azadeh Yaraghi explains, “While I was completing my piece, I thought about myself and my family witnessing the bombing of Tehran when I was ten. We, too, packed hurriedly and left with both panic and uncertainty. I left my childhood friends forever. As I worked and thought, I realized that while there are similarities, there are also differences in the outcome of the two events.”

RESISTANCE AND RESCUE:
DENMARK’S RESPONSE TO THE HOLOCAUST

Spring 1995

During the Holocaust, thousands of people participated in rescue efforts to save human lives, knowing that if they were caught by the Nazis, they risked their lives. Resistance and Rescue memorializes and publicizes the humanity and bravery of the people of Denmark in rescuing their Jewish citizens. Thanks to the actions of the entire Danish nation, and the willingness of Sweden to accept Jewish refugees, more than 90% of Jewish Danes escaped deportation and certain death. The exhibition presents contemporary black and white photographs of the rescuers and rescued. It raises questions about moral decision making and what moved a nation to act when countless others in the world stood by.

Curator: Cas Stachelberg

Artist: Judy Ellis Glickman
Exhibition circulated by: Thanks to Scandinavia, Inc., New York, NY, a scholarship fund.

Supported by the Jewish Festival of the Arts Society, the Lower Mainland Danish community. the Danish Lutheran Church in Burnaby, the Danish Lutheran Church Granly, Surrey, the Danish Chamber of Commerce, the Danish Royal Guard Society, Danish Distillers, Copenhagen – Aalborg Akvavit, Cherry Herring, and Kirsberry Liqueur, Absolut Vodka, Arlene Gladstone and Labatts Breweries of Canada.

ANNE FRANK IN THE WORLD 1929–1945

Fall 1994

The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre opened in the fall of 1994 with the inaugural exhibition Anne Frank in The World: 1929–1945, an internationally acclaimed exhibition produced by the Anne Frank Center USA, New York. The exhibition is a photo documentary that recreates the world of Anne Frank and her diary. By telling the story of Anne Frank and her world, the exhibition highlights the causes, instruments and dangers of discrimination and the fragility of democracy.

Organized and curated by the Anne Frank Center USA, New York, NY

Supported by the Carousel Theatre company, Irene Dual, the Department of Canadian Heritage, Canadian Job Strategies Operations, the BC Ministry of Education, Multiculturalism BC, the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver Endowment Fund, Shalom Branch of the Royal Canadian Legion and Equitable Life.

VANCOUVER DUTCH SUVIVORS

Fall 1994

Running concurrently with the Anne Frank exhibition was a companion exhibition produced by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre which presented the oral histories and artefacts of local Dutch survivors.