TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | APRIL 15-21, 2022 2
CUNY CHANCELLOR TOURS HOLOCAUST CENTER
AT QUEENSBOROUGH COMMUNITY COLLEGE
BY ETHAN MARSHALL
CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez
took a tour of Queensborough
Community College’s (QCC) Harriet and
Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center in
Bayside on Thursday, April 7.
He was accompanied by QCC President
Christine Mangino; executive director of
the Kupferberg Holocaust Center (KHC)
Laura B. Cohen; Holocaust survivor and
current chairman of the KHC advisory
board Manfred Korman; Associate Director
at the Kupferberg Holocaust Center
Marisa Hollywood; and Dr. Cary Lane of
the school’s Department of Academic Literacy,
among others.
The exhibit, “The Concentration
Camps: Inside the Nazi System of Incarceration
and Genocide,” focuses on the
complexity of the mechanism of Nazi terror
and extermination and explores the
broader ramifications of prejudice, racism
and stereotyping. In order to better convey
the physical feeling of the ghettos and
concentration camps, some of the walls in
the building had were made from bricks
and wood. Additionally, an iron gate at the
entrance of the exhibit symbolizes those
found at entrances to concentration camps.
According to Cohen, many of the students
prefer physical exhibits compared
to reading about people, places or things
related to the Holocaust online.
“You can’t just read or write about the
Final Solution in one sentence,” Cohen
said. Interpersonal connection has proven
to be a great way to draw their attention.
According to Hollywood, a big challenge
had been making the students better
relate to the atrocities committed, as they
happened so far away from New York City.
Bringing in artifacts from the Holocaust
for the exhibit and survivors to speak to
the students has proven effective at drawing
their interest.
“Many of these survivors were teenagers
or children then,” Hollywood said.
“Students can relate to that.” Recorded interviews
the school had done with 13 Holocaust
survivors in February 2020 are available
to be viewed at the exhibit. In them,
each survivor described their experience
at the camps and the aftermath.
One of the most impactful items in the
exhibit is a concentration camp jacket that
was worn by Holocaust survivor Benzion
Peresecki while at Dachau. While he and
his mother both survived the Holocaust,
his older brother Levi-Ichak was killed in
July 1941 as one of over 300 victims via a
firing squad of Lithuanian Activist Front
and Nazi soldiers. He was 17.
KHC Executive Director Laura B. Cohen talks to CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez about the section of the exhibit they are in. The
concrete wall behind them is meant to symbolize Jerusalem. Photo by Queensborough Community College)
Rodríguez said he found the exhibit
very interesting.
“I’m already making plans to come
back again and see everything the exhibit
has to offer,” Rodríguez said.
He noted that with hate crimes rising in
the city, it could do a lot of good for people
to see this exhibit and remember what
atrocities that state of mind can cause.
“You certainly feel the sense of reflection
by the end of the exhibit,” Rodríguez
added. “The KHC has long been one of our
city’s most effective leaders in sustaining
the memory of that dark period so that
today’s students and future generations
understand the consequences of antisemitism
as well as ethnic hatred, racism and
bigotry against all groups and in all forms.
This new exhibitionis difficult and sobering
but so important. Its relevance to
today’s world, and this week’s horrors in
Ukraine, is all too clear.”
With Yom Ha’Shoah — Holocaust Remembrance
Day in Hebrew — set to begin
the evening of April 27 and end the following
evening, it’s now a very good time to
visit the exhibit and remember just how
much those in the concentration camps
went through. It’s also worth keeping in
mind that the Jewish people weren’t the
only ones persecuted and killed in the
camps, according to Cohen, who added
Holocaust survivor Benzion Peresecki wore this prisoner jacket while locked up at Dachau
Concentration Camp. Photo by Ethan Marshall
that some of the other groups include Jehovah’s
Witnesses, homosexuals and people
with mental disabilities.
The KHC was initially opened as a research
center in 1983 before being converted
into one of the first research archives
devoted to the Holocaust on the East Coast
of the United States shortly afterward.
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