Virginia Holocaust Museum
The Virginia Holocaust Museum is a by Jay M. Ipson, founded in 1997 in memory of the Holocaust Museum and is located in Richmond ( Virginia).
General
With the museum tour, reading, films and events, the museum seeks to educate the public to be more tolerant. The official motto of the museum is " Tolerance Through Education" ( tolerance through education ). Currently, there are 28 exhibitions in the museum. Hundreds of school groups visit each year the museum.
History
In the 1980s, Ipson began to speak in schools about his experiences during the Holocaust. Regularly he left already by 6 clock in the morning the house to keep time for the start of school a lecture and then drove to work, to friends he made the suggestion that it would be easier to let the arriving school classes.
In 1997, Ipson with Mark E. Fetter and Al Rosenbaum a corresponding exhibition besides the local synagogue Temple Beth El. Thus, the Virginia Holocaust Museum was born. Since the premises were too small because of the great interest they were looking for a larger building. With the support of Congressman Eric Cantor, a former tobacco factory was set as the new site of the museum are available Ipson 2001. Only with large financial and time costs, the museum was re- opened in 2003. In the first year the museum had more than 10,000 visitors from every state in the U.S., but also from Europe, Asia and South Africa.
Since then, the Virginia Holocaust Museum was expanded and has seen more than 175,000 visitors since its inception. 2007, it celebrated its 10th anniversary. For this reason, many events took place. Since 2008 located in the museum of the world's only faithfully reconstructed courtroom of the Nuremberg Trials. This space was opened with the name " Palace of Justice ".
The Virginia Holocaust Museum is an Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service will be completed.
Exhibitions
When you enter the museum, you will be transported back to the era of National Socialism. You experience the atmosphere of the Dachau concentration camp and later finds himself in the dining room of a Jewish family again, where you listen to the radio news about the November pogroms of 1938.
Finally you come to a ghetto in Lithuania, from which one " flees " and can crawl into the shelter of the Ipson family. This leads to the destiny of the Ipson family over who had to escape from the ghetto of Kaunas in Lithuania and in a hole near a farm was six months shelter. Jay M. Ipson, who came to the " Kovno Ghetto " at age six with his family, is now the director of the museum. Through a freight car to get to the "Final Solution" and the gas chamber, through which one enters the crematorium.
Then you come into a room, showing the liberation by the Allies and further in a DP camp. With the immigration ship "Exodus " to return to Palestine.
In addition to the Survivor 's Room ( exhibition commemorating Holocaust survivors ) and the freight car in front of the museum is a place for silent tribute. This car was made available to the museum as part of a project of the German Alexander - life stone -Realschule from Haltern am See Alexander of life Steins friend Erwin cherry tree available.
Choral Synagogue
The integrated in the museum synagogue was built on the model of the famous Choral Synagogue (Lithuania). After several years of efforts, Jay M. Ipson was able to achieve in 2009 that the Virginia Holocaust Museum, a Torah that had been preserved during the Holocaust in Lithuania in hiding and was brought to its discovery to Israel gets. Since its extensive restoration it is in the synagogue of the museum.
Alternative civil service of the VHM
The Association of Austrian Service Abroad is a recognized by the Federal Ministry of the Interior pursuant to § 12b ZDG sponsoring organization, the civil service duty Austrians offers the possibility to make a 12-month alternative civil service abroad. This can be done in conjunction with the carbide in the form of a memorial service (Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service ).