Remembering Our Place in History
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The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews including 1.5 million children, by the Nazi regime in Germany, aided by its allies and collaborators. It was genocide on an unprecedented scale, with the aim of annihilating the Jewish people. Racist ideology was used to justify the persecution and murder not only of Jews, but many additional millions, like the Sinti and Roma, Slavic people, or people with disabilities. Many risked their lives to save their neighbors and countrymen, but many more stood by and watched in silence. An essential lesson from the Holocaust is the responsibility to stand up to injustice, hatred, and bigotry against any group of people.
Remembering
The Holocaust
Do You Know?
Click on a question to see the answer.
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1. Do you know when the Holocaust took place?The Holocaust is an historic event which began in 1933 and ended in 1945, during which Nazi Germany persecuted and tried to eliminate the Jewish people, based on its antisemitic and racist ideology. It took place in the areas occupied by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.
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2. Do you know who are the Romani people are, and why they were persecuted?"The same racist ideology and belief in the racial superiority of the German people that was used to justify the murder of Jews was applied also to the Romani tribes, or “gypsies” of Europe. It is estimated that about 500,000 and possibly more Roma and Sinti were murdered in extermination camps and died of hunger and disease in forced labor and concentration camps. The “Romani Holocaust” has been largely unknown and it was not until 1982 that Germany recognized that it committed genocide against the Romani tribes. https://www.romasintigenocide.eu/en
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3. Do you know about Jewish resistance to the Nazis?Resistance to the Nazis took many forms from individual acts of courage to organized resistance. To die with dignity was a form of resistance. To survive hunger and demoralizing brutality, were acts of resistance and victory of the human spirit. The military strength of Nazi Germany and its allies, the concentration of Jews into ghettos, the thorough administrative system put in place, and the hostility of the civilian populations made it impossible for Jews to resist effectively, but it did not prevent them from trying. There were over a hundred uprisings, of which the best known is in the Warsaw ghetto. The Warsaw uprising in 1943 was the largest armed resistance against deportations to death camps. The revolt was defeated, but the courageous act of resistance helped raise Jewish morale and fueled resistance across Nazi occupied areas. The Warsaw uprising has been documented, including a detailed report with photographs prepared by an SS officer, known as the “Stroop Report”, used as evidence in the Nuremberg Trials for war crimes held after WWII.
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4. Do you know about the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews?The planned deportation of the Jews from within Bulgaria's pre-war borders (but not the areas annexed during the war) was never carried out. Bulgarian public figures protested against the deportation - among them Bulgarian Orthodox Church bishops, and persuaded the Tsar to postpone their deportation indefinitely. Their property was confiscated, they were forcibly relocated and all Jewish males between the ages of 20 and 40 were sent to forced labor, but the majority were not deported to the death camps. A monument is located in Charles Clore park in Tel Aviv. Its twin is in Bulgaria near the National Assembly in Sofia. Both monuments were initiated in 2013, when Bulgaria marked the 70th anniversary of the rescue of the Bulgarian Jews.
The Augusta Jewish Museum has many more stories to tell.
Please come see us when the AJM opens in Summer 2024.
AJCC Holocaust Memorial
Holocaust Memorial
Located on the grounds of the Augusta Jewish Community Center this local Holocaust Memorial reminds us of the millions of innocent victims who perished.
Micki and Alan Lavine and children Lenore and Mark donated this sculpture to the Augusta Jewish Community Center in Columbia County.
This sculpture depicts six flames representing the six million innocent Jewish victims killed during the Holocaust.
Engraved on the sculpture are also the names of the communities in Europe from which Jewish men, women, and children were displaced and then murdered during the Holocaust. The Jewish way of life and culture that thrived for generations in these villages, towns, and cities were destroyed along with their Jewish residents. The Nazis kept accurate ledgers of their activities with the names, ages, and birthplaces of the victims. There are such ledgers preserved in museums (see link below) that show the horrific crime of total elimination of all the Jewish people from a town just callously marked as a task completed.
This sculpture at the Augusta Jewish Community center stands as a local memorial in honor of the victims.
Eye witness accounts of the Holocaust
Abe's Story: A Holocaust Memoir. Abram Korn survived two Nazi ghettos, eight concentration camps, and a 45-day death march from Auschwitz. This is his inspiring story of how Abe kept his sense of human dignity. After the war, Abe settled in Augusta, Georgia where he raised a family and became a successful businessman.
American signatures on a Nazi flag
This Nazi flag was taken from a German tank near the Buchenwald Death Camp by a group of American soldiers in 1945. The men roughly tore the body of the flag away, leaving only its ominous black swastika inside its soiled white circle. Celebrating the moment for posterity, the men all signed their names with their rank and home addresses. One of them is from the CSRA. When the museum opens, come and find his signature along with the story of this priceless display from WWII.
Only a small section is shown here. The entire flag center with the signatures will be displayed with the original 1930 Voigtlander camera that Sgt. Chuck Heery, a medic in the 565th Anti-aircraft Battalion in General Patton’s Third Army, acquired from a German POW near Buchenwald.
The Augusta Jewish Museum has many more stories to tell.
Please come see us when the AJM opens in Summer 2024.