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Rendering of Brooklyn’s first Holocaust museum which will be located in Borough Park. Photo: Kleinman Family Center

Borough Park, NY - In anticipation of its opening next spring on Borough Park’s 50th Street, The Kleinman Family Holocaust Education Center has hired the same designer who produced exhibits in the National September 11th Memorial & Museum.

The Daily News reports (http://nydn.us/QGJ2CH) that designer David Layman is in the process of collecting historical pieces from World War II, such as photos, important documents, Torah scrolls, books, and religious items like prayer shawls, and determining how and where these artifacts will be displayed in the Center.

“Our design approach is telling the story through the eyes of the people themselves,” Layman told the Daily News. The Brooklyn community is featured prominently. The artifacts, photos, and papers are primarily from Borough Park.”
Layman added that his work on this project is similar to that of the 9/11 museum, explaining, “Both stories are very similar. They are both events that changed humanity forever.”

The Kleinman Family Holocaust Education Center, a four-story structure, consists of a research library, a museum, and an interview room where survivors can record testimony about their experiences. At the heart of the Center is the story of Orthodox Jewish life prior to, throughout, and following the war. It is the first Holocaust museum which highlights the unique struggles of Orthodox Jewry during World War II. Also on display will be rabbinical rulings issued in the 1940s pertaining to laws of kashrut, specifically, whether or not starving Jews in the Nazi ghettos were permitted to eat non-kosher food.

“Jewish children in Brooklyn aren’t getting much exposure to the Holocaust,” said Rabbi Sholom Friedman, who directs the Center. “A museum in such a Jewish heavy area makes sense. The Orthodox were singled out. They were more noticeably Jewish.”

To date, some of the artifacts donated by survivors have included one of the last German visas to be issued in 1939 and a marriage certificate signed at a displacement camp in Landsberg, Germany in 1945.

The Center is currently asking City families to donate photos, documents, and other sacred objects from the World War II era. Brooklyn is home to approximately 9,000 Holocaust survivors, the largest contingent outside of Israel.

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