US Holocaust Museum Show Inspires Hungarian Art Students

US Holocaust¹ Museum Show Inspires Hungarian Art Students

At first look, the black-and-white photograph seems sweet and innocent. The image was taken in 1929 in Bremen, Germany. Nine neighborhood boys stand together. They are smiling as they look at the camera.

But, the photograph is the start of a dark story that is part of a new exhibit. The show, called “Some Were Neighbors,” is at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.

Many years after that photograph was taken, and after the end of World War II, one of the men in that old photo put it in the mail. He sent it and a letter to another man in the photo, seen standing² with a bicycle. The man with a bicycle was Jewish. During World War II, Nazis⁴ murdered his mother. Later, he became a rabbi.

In the letter, the other man explained that he had worked as a Nazi³ guard at Germany’s Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. But, he wrote, he “never touched a Jew.”

The rabbi wrote back to the sender of the letter.

He said, “What I wanted to hear...was how he felt about his job. Did he think that killing⁵ Jews was the proper thing to do?”

He never got an answer.

The questions the rabbi asked the guard are central to the “Some Were Neighbors” exhibit. Millions of ordinary people saw the crimes of the Holocaust. They saw the crimes take place in city squares, in stores and schools, in the countryside and other places. The Nazis found people all across Europe who willing to take part in their crimes.

“Some Were Neighbors” explores what moves people to behave certain ways in difficult situations. The exhibit challenges viewers to understand a dark period of history. It also examines the importance of social responsibility.

Zsuzsanna Kozák runs the Visual World Foundation in Budapest, Hungary. The non-profit organization works to support peace through video and media literacy⁶. Last year, Kozák and other educators gathered at the U.S. museum for an international conference on Holocaust education.

The museum organized the conference with UNESCO. The conference brought together teams from 10 countries that have limited educational material on the Holocaust and other genocides. Those countries were Hungary, India, Lithuania, Mexico, Morocco, Namibia, South Korea, Rwanda and Turkey.

Each country’s team left with a project plan. Kozák and the team from Hungary used the “Some Were Neighbors” exhibit to create a traveling student art project. The project centered on the Holocaust. But, it aims to create a discussion about current tensions in their country, including a large new border fence that blocked migrants from entering Hungary.

The anti-discrimination project is called “Your Decision.” Kozák’s team worked with educators from six Hungarian schools. The students were from the very young to college age. The students explored ideas of tolerance⁷ – or accepting difference.

Each group studied pieces of the “Some Were Neighbors” exhibit, such as a film clip⁸ of a Holocaust-era public shaming, or the Bremen neighborhood boys’ photo. Each group was asked to make art communicating the ideas they had studied.

The students’ works were displayed at an exhibit last week in Budapest at the Canadian embassy⁹.

Teenagers from a Jewish school in Budapest made a three-dimensional copy of the Bremen neighborhood boys’ photograph. They separated the man who received the letter and another boy from the rest of the group.

Zsuzsanna Kozák was born in 1974. She recalled not learning much about World War II history in school. “There is such a cultural silence,” she said.

Peter Fredlake directs the Holocaust museum’s teacher education program. He said the “Some Were Neighbors” exhibit tries to change people’s understanding of what the Holocaust was.

The Hungarian student art project, he said, “pushes back against the Holocaust narrative¹⁰ Hungarians hear today, one that ignores personal responsibility and claims victimhood.”

Fredlake said that since the international conference, the other nine countries’ teams have also been exploring new ways for talking about genocide.

The Hungarian students’ art project will be on display at the six participating schools starting in May. It will then move on to sites like the International Jewish Youth Camp in Hungary and to a gallery in Austria.

Kozák said she hopes the art project will be seen in many places, for many years, because intolerance “is a universal challenge.”

Words in This Story

rabbi - n. a person who is trained to make decisions about what is lawful¹¹ in Judaism?

proper - adj. correct according to social or moral rules

ordinary - adj. not unusual, different, or special

challenge - v. to test the ability, skill, or strength of (someone or something)

literacy - n. knowledge that relates to a specified¹² subject

tolerance - n. willingness to accept feelings, habits, or beliefs that are different from your own

narrative - n. a story that is told or written

genocide - n. the deliberate¹³ killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political, or cultural group

gallery - n. a room or building in which people look at paintings, sculptures, etc.

1 holocaust   

n.大破坏；大屠杀

参考例句：

• The Auschwitz concentration camp always remind the world of the holocaust.奥辛威茨集中营总是让世人想起大屠杀。
• Ahmadinejad is denying the holocaust because he's as brutal as Hitler was.内贾德否认大屠杀，因为他像希特勒一样残忍。

2 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

3 Nazi   

n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的

参考例句：

• They declare the Nazi regime overthrown and sue for peace.他们宣布纳粹政权已被推翻，并出面求和。
• Nazi closes those war criminals inside their concentration camp.纳粹把那些战犯关在他们的集中营里。

4 Nazis   

n.（德国的）纳粹党员( Nazi的名词复数 )；纳粹主义

参考例句：

• The Nazis worked them over with gun butts. 纳粹分子用枪托毒打他们。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Nazis were responsible for the mass murder of Jews during World War Ⅱ. 纳粹必须为第二次世界大战中对犹太人的大屠杀负责。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

6 literacy   

n.识字，有文化，读写能力

参考例句：

• I can't believe that he failed the literacy test.我无法相信他识字测试不及格。
• The literacy rate there is the highest in Central America.那里的识字率居中美洲之首。

7 tolerance   

n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差

参考例句：

• Tolerance is one of his strengths.宽容是他的一个优点。
• Human beings have limited tolerance of noise.人类对噪音的忍耐力有限。

8 clip   

n.夹子，别针，弹夹，片断；vt.夹住，修剪

参考例句：

• May I clip out the report on my performance?我能把报道我的文章剪下来吗？
• She fastened the papers together with a paper clip.她用曲别针把文件别在一起。

9 embassy   

n.大使馆，大使及其随员

参考例句：

• Large crowd demonstrated outside the British Embassy.很多群众在英国大使馆外面示威。
• He's a U.S. diplomat assigned to the embassy in London.他是美国驻伦敦大使馆的一名外交官。

10 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

11 lawful   

adj.法律许可的，守法的，合法的

参考例句：

• It is not lawful to park in front of a hydrant.在消火栓前停车是不合法的。
• We don't recognised him to be the lawful heir.我们不承认他为合法继承人。

12 specified   

adj.特定的

参考例句：

• The architect specified oak for the wood trim. 那位建筑师指定用橡木做木饰条。
• It is generated by some specified means. 这是由某些未加说明的方法产生的。

13 deliberate   

adj.故意的，深思熟虑的；v.仔细考虑

参考例句：

• You should deliberate over the question before you respond to it.回答问题之前你应该慎重考虑。
• His actions were clearly the result of deliberate calculation.他的行动显然是精心策划过的。