‘We must never forget’: Holocaust exhibit on Auschwitz coming to Kansas City
The most comprehensive Holocaust exhibition about Auschwitz concentration camp shown in North America is coming to Kansas City in late spring, Union Station officials announced Tuesday.
The exhibit, “Auschwitz. Not Long ago. Not far away.,” features more than 700 original artifacts, 400 photographs and unpublished memoirs, many of which have never been made available to the public.
The exhibition is a narrative to better understand how such a place came into existence and serve as a warning where hatred can take us, Luis Ferreiro, director of the exhibition and chief executive officer, said in the release.
“Auschwitz did not start with gas chambers,” he said. “Hatred does not happen overnight; it builds up slowly among people. It does so with words and thoughts, with small everyday acts, with prejudices.”
The exhibition explores the development of Nazi ideology and the transformation of Auschwitz from an ordinary Polish town known as Oświęcim to the most significant Nazi site of the Holocaust, where 1 million Jews, and tens of thousands of others, were murdered.
The exhibition also will show through artifacts the world of the perpetrators who created and operated the largest of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camps.
“Remembering the largest genocide perpetrated in the 20th Century is imperative for the education of our future generations,” George Guastello, Union Station’s president and chief executive officer, said in a release.
“It’s important that we continue totell the story in an effort to educate and bring to light the hatred that led to the human catastrophe of Auschwitz. We must never forget.”
Tuesday’s announcement, made during a press conference at Union Station, is the culmination of five-years of work to bring the exhibit to Kansas City, Guastello said.
“Over the last five years, our professional team, our board, our directors and civic leaders have been working tirelessly to bring this exhibition to Kansas City,” Guastello said during the press conference.
That work has included the taking of trips and tours, the negotiating of deals and the working out of countless details to tell the story of Auschwitz, he said.
“Stories from the past that rightfully reverberate around the world and must be told again and again,” Guastello said.
Survivor testimony and thematic galleries
The exhibit will unfold the story of the Holocaust across Union Station’s 20,000-square-foot Bank of America Gallery. It will introduce objects and survivor testimony through 20 thematic galleries.
The exhibition will allow visitors to experience artifacts from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, including personal items such as suitcases, eyeglasses and shoes that belonged to survivors and victims of the concentration camp.
It will also include concrete posts that were part of the camp’s fence and fragments of a prisoner barrack. Other items include a gas mask used by the SS officers, Picasso’s lithograph of Prisoner and a German-made Model 2 freight wagon used to deport Jews to the ghettos and extermination camps in occupied Poland.
There will also be a desk and other possessions of Rudolf Höss, the first and longest serving commandant of Auschwitz.
‘Dangers of unchecked bigotry’
Union Station is partnering with the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education to host a series of public and educational programs featuring experts on the Holocaust during the run of the exhibition.
“The Holocaust and Auschwitz represents the dangers of unchecked bigotry and racism,” said Jessica Rockhold, the center’s executive director. “It stands as lesson for all humanity. It asks us, it demands of us to challenge our belief in the capacity of human behavior.”
Most people did not perpetrate or become victim of the atrocities, rather the vast majority were among the indifferent middle, she said.
“This challenges us to consider where we land on the spectrum of responsibility in our world today and what our responsibilities are as citizens of the world in the challenges we face,” Rockhold said.
The exhibit is expected to draw not only local and regional visitors, but national and international travelers as well, said Ramón Murguía, Union Station’s chairman of the board.
“This is a topic for everyone,” he said. “This is a story that must be told.”
VIP/Anytime exhibition tickets are currently on sale for $25 at unionstation.org. Advance ticket buyers will be given first option to reserve exhibition visit. The opening date of the exhibit will be announced in the coming months.
The presenting sponsor for the exhibition is Bank of America.
This story was originally published September 15, 2020 at 11:54 AM.
