January 15, 2024 -The Decatur Public Library has partnered with the Holocaust Education Center and Jewish Federation of Champaign-Urbana to bring The Auschwitz Experience in the Art of Prisoners to the Decatur Public Library for a limited engagement from January 19 to February 9.
On loan from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland, the exhibit features the art and stories of 12 survivors of the camp, historical context, and more. Additional programming will support the exhibit throughout its run, including a grand opening with keynote by Holocaust scholar Bob Lehmann, a discussion with Holocaust survivor Dr. William Gingold, and a teacher workshop for local educators. This program is made possible in part by generous funding from the Friends of the Decatur Public Library.
Bob Lehmann is a teacher at Westville Senior High School and a doctoral candidate in Holocaust & Genocide Studies at Gratz College, Philadelphia, PA. His research interests and dissertation project will be focused on the efforts of Orthodox Christians in rescue and resistance operations during the Holocaust. Bob was selected to be an interviewer for the video history project “Survivors of the Shoah” and has received two national fellowships in Holocaust education research: the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Teacher Fellowship (1998) and the Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Teacher’s Fellowship (2000). He has been an active committee member of the Champaign-Urbana Jewish Federation’s Holocaust Education Center for over 20 years, and has coordinated and presented at many of their educator seminars on various aspects and topics of the Holocaust history and pedagogy. Additionally, he has presented on the Holocaust for the U.S. Army in Kuwait, and at other educator and community events and workshops around the Midwest. He received his B.A. in History from Western Illinois University, and M.A. in Secondary Education from Northern Michigan University, and an M.A. in History with a Graduate Certificate in European History from American Public University.
William (Baruch) Gingold was born September 20, 1939, one day before the hospital, (in which he was born in Warsaw, Poland), was bombed and destroyed by Nazi Germany. His immediate family were incarcerated in the Warsaw Ghetto until eventually escaping to the Russian border in January of 1942. Upon reaching the Russian encampment, they and other Jewish people were transported in trucks to trains which took them to Siberian lumber work camps. In November of 1942 the Gingolds were allowed to leave the camp and move about within Russia and eventually found their way to Zhambly, Kazakhstan. The Gingolds later emigrated to the United States of America in May of 1951 and arrived by boat at Ellis Island, NY. Soon thereafter the Gingolds resettled in Milwaukee, WI, where new lives and many transitions began in their start of the American dream and way of life.
For more information about the exhibit or to register for its supporting events, click HERE.
