Why Auschwitz Plays Such a Central Role in Holocaust Remembrance
When the Anti-Defamation League announced on Tuesday that anti-Semitic assaults had doubled in the U.S. from 2017 to 2018, the news was shocking but, sadly, not entirely surprising: a shooting left one dead at a California synagogue last Sunday, just days before Thursday’s observance of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.
One effect of that sobering shift is being felt in New York City at a museum located a 10-minute walk from the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. Its full name declares it “The Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust” and it was built with six sides to represent the six million Jewish people who died in the Holocaust. Even so, when it opened in 1997, its founders decided to put an emphasis on Jewish heritage in order to differentiate it from the recently opened the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. But in the last year, the museum’s board has considered modifying its name, in order to give the Holocaust more prominent placeme..