Episode 2: BERENBAUM

Dr. Michael Berenbaum is the Director of the Sigi Ziering Institute which studies the ethical and religious implications of the Holocaust. He is based at the American Jewish University. He is also the curator of the only authorized traveling exhibition of Auschwitz. We caught up with him during the installation of the exhibit at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
January thirtieth, nineteen thirty nine,during a two and a half hour speech,
German dictator Adolf Hitler tells a crowdof thousands that if another World War
were to break out, he predictedthe annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.
Eight months later, Germany invaded Polandand World War Two began, and

(00:30):
Hitler continued his genocide of the Jewsinside Germany itself. The Elizas is the
famous stadium of Nuremberg. On Mayeighth, nineteen forty five, the war
in Europe ended chapter of this famoussouthern German city. The American flag blouped
out the Swastika after the dust settled. It was estimated that more than six

(00:52):
million Jews died in the Holocaust,but what didn't die was anti Semitism.
In fact, it flourished throughout historyand today, almost eighty years later,
anti Semitism has evolved and become evenmore dangerous, largely due to technology.
If Adolf Hitler had an Instagram account, the Holocaust would have happened a lot
quicker because the public would have beenconvinced a lot sooner. This is the

(01:21):
iHeartRadio original podcast Hate Modern Anti SemitismI'm investigative journalist Steve Gregory in Los Angeles.
Doctor Michael Barenbaum is the director ofthe Ciggy's Eering Institute, which studies
the ethical and religious implications of theHolocaust. He's based at the American Jewish
University. He is also the curatorthe only authorized traveling exhibition of Auschwitz.

(01:46):
He gave us a personal tour ofthe exhibit as it was being installed at
the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in SemiValley, California. I asked him to
describe the very spot where we satto do the interview. I think we're
sitting in very dramatic space. We'resitting inside and authentic barracks from Birkenhout,

(02:07):
and the barracks has a range ofexhibitions within the barracks. And this is
a place. This was called thehorse stable barracks, and that is the
wooden barracks and Auschwitz were originally designedas horse stables, and they would have
three tiered bunks with prisoners on allthree tiers. They would have a line

(02:31):
down the middle as it were,with some bricks that was used as benches,
and it would be a horrific placeto be. You can only imagine
how cold it would be in winter, in the cold Polish winter, because
you see and you can experience howthin the walls are. The roof let

(02:53):
in air. You had windows ontop which also let in air. So
if you had ten degree in fivedegree below zero weather, you're frozen from
the moment you stepped in, throughthe out all the night. We are
in the center of this exhibit,Auschwitz, not long ago, not far
away, inside the Reagan Library,and we're here on the day when a

(03:15):
lot of this is actually being installed. And as the curator of this exhibit
doc let's go back to its firstdebut and where was it at and what
prompted you to put this exhibit together. Let's answer the easy question, which
is where has it been. It'sbeen in Madrid, it's been in New

(03:38):
York, it's been in Kansas City, and most recently it's been in Malmo.
Malmo is a very unique place inSweden because Malmo was the place when
Jews were ferried out of Denmark toa freedom. They went across the nine
mile straits that separates Malmo from Denmarkand they found Malmo to be a city

(04:02):
of great freedom because the Swedes workwelcomed them and accepted them. The origin
of this comes in a very interestingway. There's a fellow by them,
Louis Ferraro, who runs an exhibitioncompany called Muse Yellow, and he had
lost his brother, a very youngman, lost his brother in his thirties,

(04:26):
and he read a book that offeredhim some consolation. The book was
man searched for meaning biopsychiatrist by thename Victor Frankel. Victor Frankel was in
Auschwitz and was in Tresmence that andhe said to himself, if I find
this so meaningful and so powerful,and I'm in the museum exhibition business,

(04:46):
let's see if I can turn toAuschwitz and see if they'll do something dramatic
and revolutionary. And he went toAuschwitz and he met with the leadership and
he said, two million people,this is pre COVID, two main people
a year come to Auschwitz. Letme bring Auschwitz to the people. And
he arranged with them, because theywere interested in this new possibility. He

(05:12):
arranged with them the possibility of makingan exhibition on Auschwitz that would be a
traveling special exhibition. And they gaveus an exhibitional vocabulary in terms of seven
seven hundred artifacts from Auschwitz itself.Now, in a museum, you use
text and graphics, films and photographs. But what makes a museum a museum

(05:36):
is that you have artifacts within themuseum which people can see, in which
people can come close to, andwhich illustrate the experience. Museums are peculiar
in a very interesting way. Thebest storytelling mechanism we know in the modern

(05:57):
world for a group to experience asa film, if you think of it,
has a captive audience in moving imagery, sit down in the theater and
the director does with you whatever hewants to do or she wants to do
with you. What is different abouta museum. Museum has captive imagery and
a moving audience. You move fromplace to place, and therefore we tell

(06:21):
a story, and we tell astory with the diversity of the different ways
in which you can tell a story. And then we had this enormous possibility
because we got this vocabulary, thismateriality from Alshmitz with which to tell the
story. When we got here tothe Reagan Library, the first thing that

(06:45):
jumped out at me when we werecoming into the entrance was an actual rail
car from Auschwitz. Is that appearedto me to be the real deal.
That is the real deal in thesense that it's the type of road cars
that they put Jews on, butit's a real deal in a much more
profound way. Nazi history of persecutionthe Jews evolved. First it was persecution.

(07:13):
Then it was designed to rob themof their means to live, segregation,
apartheid, and what they called expropriation, which is taking any way by
which you can earn a living.Couldn't have bank accounts, couldn't old stock,
couldn't have stores, etc. Etc. They then had a problem because

(07:36):
they wanted to force the Jews toimmigrate, but there was no way nowhere
that would take the Jews in thenumbers to which they wanted to leave.
And the Nazi universe kept expanding nineteenthirty eight and went into Austria nineteen thirty
eight, it went into Czech partof Czechoslovakia, nineteen thirty nine, the

(07:56):
rest of Czechoslovakia, and by thetime it went into poll it had several
million Jews under its control. Andif you can't get rid of the Jews
by forced immigration, and you keepexpanding and getting more Jews. How you're
going to get rid of the Jewsin Poland? They decided and occupied Poland.
They decided to contain the Jews ghettoeyes and isolate the Jews, And

(08:20):
in the beginning of nineteen forty one, they decided to murder the Jews bullet
by bullet, town by town,village by village men, women and children.
That turned out to be difficult forthe killers. They had a drink
before, after, sometimes even during, they had mental breakdowns. So the

(08:41):
railroad car represents a reversal of themodality of killing. If you no longer
send mobile killers to stationary victims,what's the next thing to do? You
make the victims mobile and you sendthem to stationary killing centers that are assembly

(09:01):
line factories of murder. What makesthe victim's mobile the railroad car. The
railroad car and every one of thedeaf camps was located on a railroad at
a railroad junction. Auschwitz was locatedat a railroad junction with forty four parallel

(09:22):
railroad tracks, which represented essentially thatyou could bring Jews from the four corners
of Europe to one place at onetime in order to murder them. Now,
the railroad car also has another specialmeaning. The railroad car was the
last moment that family was together.It's the last moment that you had a

(09:46):
father, a mother, children,You may even have brother in laws and
sister in laws, cousins, grandparents. They're all together. And then upon
a arrival at Fitz, the firstthing you had was separation, men to
one side, women to the other, women with children to the women's side.

(10:11):
The elderly was separated. Then youhad selection. But the railroad car
represented the means by which the victimswere made mobile and brought to this killing
center. I would also mention toothat while we're talking that there is construction
going on all around us, andthis is actually fascinating because we're watching the
installation of these artifacts and the artworkand all the other pieces to this exhibit

(10:37):
being installed in real time. Sothat's the noise that you might hear around
us. So doctor, when weget in, what you're really watching the
exhibition? Take shake. Yeah,I've never gone through this experience before,
so this is wonderful and I'd lovethat you've allowed us to sit in this
actual barracks and travel and exhibit likethis. So you talk about all the
cities that this exhibit has been at. You've been to all those cities.

(11:01):
Do you get to talk with peopleas they come out of the exhibit?
Do you get feedback? And whatis it you know? You asked the
most wonderful question of all. Ilove to speak to people as they leave
the exhibition because, first of all, I learned what we did right,
and I learned what we did wrong. Secondly, that that is the most

(11:24):
fertile moment for learning. I'm byprofessional teacher. The best moment of teaching
is not telling people what you're aboutto do, but hearing them interact with
what you've already done. And forme, that is terribly important. Give
you an example. We opened theexhibition in Madrid. We thought it was

(11:46):
quite good, but until you havevisitors, you don't know what you don't
know what it is. And consequentlywe sat down and again I'm a stranger
to Spain, but we sat downand Spain had a very unique characteristic.
It wasn't involved in the Holocaust.Spanish Civil War had so depleted the energy

(12:09):
of Spain that it didn't naturally liewith Hitler. Even though Franco and Hitler
were identical in their fascism. Sowe sat down with the audience and we
heard so we want to hear fromdifferent ages and different people, different religions
and different backgrounds. And I spenta couple of days meeting with audiences in

(12:31):
Spain hearing their response. Now inMalmo, clearly we had a different type
of audience because let's go back toSpain though, So what was that feedback?
Were you on track or not?You don't want me to brag on
feedback. Feedback was wonderful. Feedbackwas wonderful. The other thing it showed

(12:54):
us is that visitors got it,and we had something we didn't expect.
We had two kids who were ninewho had gone through this exhibition, and
we really don't recommend it for youngchildren. These kids got it all.
They were marvels. And you knowwhen you get a sense of I've worked

(13:20):
and planning museum exhibition takes a coupleof years. I always joke I like
to wash dishes because I work forthirty minutes and I see the results.
You're do a museum exhibition, youwork for two years and you don't see
the results until what it takes shape. And even now is this exhibition is
taking shape. It's not me who'sgiving it shape. It's all these crews

(13:43):
who are assembling, you know,putting the photograph in the right place,
putting the artifact in the right place, screwing things in perfectly, making sure
the visuals on the wall, makingsure that the videos are time to you
know, to work the sinks,synchronizing of language with the audio, I

(14:03):
mean, you know, audio withthe with the visual. All of that
is dependent on all sorts of otherpeople. Takes a team of asked team
to mount an exhibition and to seethat the exhibition works. Wow. So
that said, I want to askabout, um, where do you start.

(14:24):
Did Auschwitz tell you what they're goingto give you or did you request
items from them? I always startbackwards. If you ask me how I
create an exhibition, I always sayyou have to answer four questions. What,
where, with what? And how? What do you want to say?

(14:50):
And where do you want to sayit? And where is not only
location physically, but it's location intime, meaning where to time for example,
where some of the themes of theHolocaust are echoed unfortunately in contemporary life.
So you have a segment section onjudgment and you hear the concept of

(15:13):
crimes against humanity. Crimes against humanitywere abstract until the invasion of Ukraine.
When you hear the President talk aboutcrimes of humanity, you hear the president
of European countries, you hear ofMakron, you hear the Prime Minister of
Britain, the Chancellor of Germany,all talking about crimes against humanity. The

(15:33):
origin of that is here wars ofaggression. Again, echoes in certain certain
respects. It's not to say thatRussia is committing a holocaust. It's saying
that you have echoes, faint andsometimes vivid echoes. So I start with
what do we have to say?Then I say where are we saying it?
Where is the place and time andalso the location. So in the

(15:58):
Reagan Library we have a very uniquething because this was done by government.
This was all perpetrated by Nazi Germangovernment. There were German laws, the
German army, the German bureaucracy,the German Justice depart the German Foreign Ministry,
the German army. All of thesewere instrumentalities of the state. So

(16:21):
we have to pay attention to thefact that what is so far the great
achievement of America, which is thatthe state is restrained by checks and balances,
by respect for human dignity and humandecency, by the notion of inalienable
rights. So where has a veryparticular poignancy in this place at this time.

(16:47):
Also at this time we're doing somethingelse, which is we are in
the transitionary moment, the last momentin the life of survivors, transition from
lived history to historical memory, andthe institution becomes the air of the survivors.
With what I come with a shoppinglist. They say yes and no.

(17:10):
And sometimes you know, if theydon't have the fruit you want,
you choose another fruit. If they'renot willing to sell you the fruit that
they have in this case, lendus the fruit that they have. Use
a different artifact. So for example, we haven't installed it, it's not
going to be installed. We couldhave asked for a thousand shoes, or

(17:33):
we could have asked and we didask for one colored shoe to illustrate,
and we have a beautiful woman's redshoe high Hills, and you think of
in Washington, we have five thousandshoes, and we use a poem.
We are the shoes of grandparents andgrandchildren from Paris, Prague, in Amsterdam.

(18:00):
And because we are made of fiberand leather and not of flesh and
blood, each of us avoided thehell fire. The shoes were saved,
but not the people who wore them. So we think of the one red
shoe in a background of thousands ofshoes, Think, who is this woman?

(18:21):
Did she go dancing in these shoes? Was she a stunning model?
Was she? You know? Whatwas her life? What is it that
gets you to put on red shoes? Certainly not to go to a funeral,
certainly not to go to your doom. When we were walking through,
you were gracious enough to give usa personal tour of the exhibit as it's

(18:45):
going up. And one of thethings that struck me you stopped us at
a chart on a wall. Andthat chart was, I assume the way
it looked was a government document.And that document, if I heard you
correctly, was sort of the criteriain which someone was labeled a Jew.

(19:07):
The Nazis had a problem. Theproblem was that essentially they came with an
anti Semitical agenda which targeted the Jews. But then you got to ask yourself
that the question who are the Jews? And what they did is to divide
the population by full Jews three quarterJews, based on the religion of your

(19:27):
grandparents, half Jews, quarter Jews, eighth Jews because how many how many
great grandparents do you have? Youhave eight, And essentially they drew a
demarcation line. This was racism incarnatebecause it was not by the identity held,
the values, who were practiced,the traditions, you embraced, the

(19:48):
faith that you worshiped. It wason the religion of your grandparents, namely
what was within your blood. Andthat chart was a way to determine who
and who was not a Jew,who was to be discriminated against, and
who was going to be a targetof oppression. Later on they discovered they
had a second problem, which isunlike, for example, black skin or

(20:12):
unlike Asian eyes, Jews look manydifferent ways. So they had to mark
the Jews. That's when they puton the yellow star. In most countries
or in Poland, they used awhite armband to determine who was a Jew.
It's called symbolization and identification. Theyforced you to wear a Jewish star,

(20:34):
so they knew whom to target.That's a government chart, the rule
of a Jewish star was a governmentdecree, and therefore they knew who to
target and how to target them.He said that was racism incarnate. Racism
incarnates what condemns You remember what isMartin Luther King's great line. I want

(20:56):
people to be judged by the contentof their character, not the color of
their skin. What is the oppositeof racism when we judge people by who
they are in terms of the contentof their character, their artistry, their
ability, all of those things thatare involved, rather than what labeling them

(21:17):
because of some element of their identity. And for Jews, the criteria was
not faith. In the German world, the criteria was blood and it led
to a very unusual thing. Thelast building standing in the Warsaw Ghetto was
a Roman Catholic church. It wasfrequented by people who were Roman Catholic priest,

(21:41):
Roman Catholic nons, Roman Catholic parishioners, all of whom were defined by
the Nazi government as Jews. Sothey were worshiping Catholics defined as Jews.
Again, blood not identity. Aswe continue our tour, you pointed out

(22:02):
a number of things, and it'sjust too many to go into right now,
but Another thing that you pointed outwere these series of illustrations done by
someone who was observing what was happening, and then he later offered testimony,
and you said that this person,through his drawings, those drawings were the
testimony. We all know that therewere Holocaust memoirs by survivors. We all

(22:29):
know that there were diaries taken byyou know, written in the situation,
by people who are victims, themost famous of which is dire Van Frank,
memoirs like Yelivizel's Night or Primo Levi'sSurvival. And oucets I worked as
president and CEO of the Shoa Foundation, and we took the testimony of fifty

(22:52):
two thousand survivors in thirty two countriesand fifty in fifty seven countries and thirty
two languages, all of whom offeredvideo testimony. But there were a unique
group of artists who were in thecamps who didn't offer us written testimony,
who didn't offer us verbal testimony.They offered us art as testimony and the

(23:15):
artist testimony of the drawings that theydrew to document what they experienced. So
we used people like Jan Karmsky andDavid Olaire and you see him at things.
In their work, details, veryspecific details that reveal the magnitude of
the crime. I'm going to giveyou one. David Olair describes crematorium b

(23:41):
Thrate and in it there's a pictureof a there's a drawing of a Red
Cross truck. You ask yourself,what do you mean a Red Cross truck?
How could we have a Red Crosstruck? The Nazis had a cynical
practice of the option. When Ithink Red Cross, I think of rescue

(24:03):
and help, medical care and thevalues of healing. They took a truck,
drew a Red Cross on it,and they brought the gas for the
Zyclone B to be thrown down thechimneys. They brought that in a Red
Cross truck, deceiving their victims whosaw a Red Cross truck felt what now

(24:25):
I'm safe? Now what they're goingto come to my rescue? So that
small detail, again indicates the magnitudeof the crime known by someone who is
there. What do you want peopleto get from this? I'm going to
tell it to you in two ways. There was a couple. A prisoner

(24:52):
of foreman from another concentration camp,upon arrival, told his prisoners what they
were expect and then he concluded withthe following words, I have told you
this story not to weaken you,but to strengthen you. Now it's up
to you. We tell this storynot to weaken or depress you, but

(25:18):
to give our visitors a certain fortitude, believing that if they confront this event,
they will somehow be better people anddo something different in the future.
Let me give you the second element, which comes from the title, what

(25:38):
would I in a dream world wantvisitors to come out of here? I
want visitors to come out with thedetermination titally exhibition is Auschwitz, not long
ago, not far away. Iwant visitors to come out of this exhibition
with the commitment that Auschwitz should becomelong ago and far away and not in

(26:03):
any way manner or form part ofthe world in which you and I live
today. Finally, who should seethis? I think everybody should see this.
I don't recommend it for younger children, though again in Spain we had
younger children who went through this,but I do recommend it for any child

(26:27):
and any human being above the ageof twelve. And I think it's a
very important experience. And remember nowthat we're at the Reagan Library. If
you come with you younger children,you can also have them see the Reagan
Library while the older children and oneparent or another seize the exhibition. And

(26:48):
we open on March twenty fourth.We're sold out for a couple of weeks,
so I would get tickets now andthey're available at Reagan Library. Doctor
Michael Barabaum, thank you so muchfor your time and for your insight.
You're welcome. Thank you. HateModern Anti Semitism is a production of the

(27:14):
KFI News Department for iHeartMedia Los Angelesand the iHeart podcast network. The program
is produced by Steve Gregory and JacobGonzalez. To learn more about anti semitism
and how you can join the conversation, go to translate hate dot org.
That's translate hate dot org.