Transforming Hate Into Hope
By: Larry Gordon
With all the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish rhetoric that is currently picking up speed, people are legitimately concerned about how the fate of the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust will be remembered, spoken about, and visualized. What do we as a community and as a people do when confronted with such a challenge?
Amb. Charles Kushner and his wife
Photo Credit Adam Trzcionka
Sec. Howard Lutnick and wife, Alison.
Photo Credit Adam Trzcionka
House 88 Next to Auschwitz
Mark Wallace and Francesco Lotoro touching mezuzah
A few years ago, while on a trip to Poland with Ari Scharf and Project Mesorah, we pulled into the parking lot of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp only to encounter a group of young people from Israel dancing in a circle with Israeli flags draped around their shoulders singing Am Yisrael Chai.
It was a celebration and a declaration that the evil Nazi regime was defeated and the Jewish people and Israel live, despite what the Germans planned and expected.
Yet there remains the issue of how to preserve and perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust so that future generations can internalize the message and never forget, while at the same time combatting the normalization of antisemitism and violent extremism.
Last week, thanks to Ari Scharf, we had the opportunity to meet modern-day heroes, Elliott and Robin Broidy, of Boca Raton. They are using their determination, creativity, and philanthropic abilities to penetrate the psyches of new generations that run the risk of leaving the memory of the Holocaust in the annals of history.
Their project is bright, innovative, and hopeful in terms of its ability to communicate with a new generation that is caught between the extremist anti-Israel and anti-Jew propaganda that we’re slowly but surely beginning to realize are one and the same.
The project that is being underwritten and sponsored by the Broidys is the effort to transform the former home of the Auschwitz Commandant, Rudolf Höss, into a Global Center for Combatting Extremism. Once done, the new center will house a global education and research center.
Perusing the photos of that large home on the edge of the Auschwitz concentration camp is nothing less than chilling. The view from the master bedroom is of the crematoria where the victims were taken after they were gassed. And from the children’s bedrooms, where Höss’ five children presumably slept and played, was of the prison barracks.
It’s as puzzling as it is unbelievable. What the people involved in this project discovered was the epitome of man’s inhumanity to man. When the house was discovered, there was a family living there, probably well-aware that they were residing at the edge of the Auschwitz death camp where Jews were put to death during World War II.
The Broidys made a very generous offer to purchase the house, which precluded any kind of negotiation. That house and the property will be shortly turned into a museum, a site where people from around the world can come, young and old, to learn the truth about what happened during the Holocaust and wonder: How people could live here knowing what happened. And how people today can fathom the monster that was Rudolf Höss.
Today, Mr. Broidy serves as chairman of The Fund to End Antisemitism, Extremism & Hate (https://endantisemitismfund.com/) and is now dedicated to raising the money needed to build and maintain what is known as “House 88.”
The reference is to the 8th letter of the alphabet, H, which alludes to the words Heil Hitler. It’s ugly, but real and true. And this is what Elliott and Robin Broidy and their team are dealing with and aim to combat going forward.
Without this type of innovative and visionary thinking, we run the risk that all first-person accounts and memorials of the Holocaust might fade from memory or be forgotten altogether, chas v’shalom.
A few years ago, together with Ari Scharf and Project Mesorah, we walked this passageway through the green grass and quietness of a site that was once a factory for murdering Jews. Of course, at the time, there were buildings around the site, but we were not ready yet to fully grasp that it was in these homes that the mechanics of the Holocaust were drawn up and executed.
Now, with the Broidys, along with others like former Ambassador to the UN for Management Reform, Mark Wallace, and noted architect, Daniel Libeskind, among others, work is beginning on House 88, where visitors will be able to walk through and bear witness to one of the most overt violations that man can commit against his fellow man.
The project is particularly timely as we witness the uptick in mindless Jew-hatred around the world. There’s a great deal more to report on concerning this story, which we hope to cover moving forward in the upcoming weeks.
Read more of Larry Gordon’s articles at 5TJT.com. Follow 5 Towns Jewish Times on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates and live videos. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome at 5TJT.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
