Remembering the Holocaust in La Jolla.

The lead photo of this blog post is horrifying. It serves to remind us that we humans are capable of unspeakable atrocities.

An exhibition at the La Jolla/Riford Branch Library concerns one of those atrocities: the Holocaust.

RUTH: Remember Us the Holocaust, through words written and spoken by local Holocaust survivors, biographies, artifacts and photographs, serves to remind us that horrors like this must be forever remembered and resisted by ordinary, kind-hearted people.

One way to cement our need to remember is to visit the exhibition and experience what life was like for Jewish people and others in Germany under the Nazis before and during World War II. The irrational hatred, persecution, mass murder.

Why must people act this way?

Life is short enough. Why not simply be kind?

Why on Earth would anyone want to murder over a million children?

RUTH: Remember Us the Holocaust’s curator is Sandra Scheller, daughter of Holocaust survivors Ruth and Kurt Sax. She grew up in the South Bay of San Diego. She’s the author of Try To Remember Never Forget, and the creator of the documentary with the same name. Sandra’s TED talk, Keeping Memories Alive, has been used throughout schools as a learning platform for Holocaust education and TED Talk future speakers.

The exhibition is not only open to the public on the second floor of the La Jolla library, but many school children continue to learn an important part of history by visiting the extensive displays.

You can learn more about the exhibition and its Holocaust survivor speaker series by visiting the RUTH: Remember Us the Holocaust website here.

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Holocaust survivors speak at La Jolla library.

You have an extraordinary opportunity. Holocaust survivors and their family members have been speaking all year at the La Jolla/Riford Branch Library. See the above schedule. The next speaker will be at the La Jolla library on Tuesday, May 13.

The second floor of the La Jolla library is currently hosting the exhibition RUTH: Remember Us the Holocaust, which recalls the horrors of a nightmarish period in human history that no one should ever forget.

I blogged about this exhibition several years ago when it was showing in Chula Vista. See those photos here. I’ll be blogging about the current exhibition in La Jolla (which is even more powerful) shortly.

Meanwhile, please spread the word. Holocaust survivors will continue to recall their personal experiences the second Tuesday of each month. Bring your friends. This is incredibly important.

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

Feel free to share!

The powerful Holocaust exhibit in Chula Vista.

It is essential, to maintain our humanity, that we remember the Holocaust, and the terrifying inhumanity of a time and place when six million ordinary people were systematically murdered.

RUTH Remember Us The Holocaust is an extremely powerful exhibit now on display in Chula Vista. It occupies a corner of the Chula Vista Civic Center Library–a quiet, thoughtful space set aside for the Chula Vista Heritage Museum.

Display cases filled with photographs remember the experiences of Holocaust survivors who arrived in the South Bay with important stories to tell and broken lives to renew. One survivor, in particular, is highlighted: Ruth Sax. As a girl, she lived the horror of Jewish persecution by the Nazis. Ruth would end up in three different concentration camps including Auschwitz.

Those who wish to learn from history will see how Nazis in pre-World War II Germany began with anti-Jewish propaganda and discrimination, and ended with ghettos, concentration camps and extermination centers.

“The smell, deaths, lice, beatings, isolation, tattoos, gassings, cremations, humiliations . . . and the starving, shaving, hiding, markings, threats . . . this was the Holocaust. I felt dead inside . . .” These words were written by Ursula Israelski.

Many of the Holocaust survivors who arrived in San Diego’s South Bay brought with them similar memories. And many, appreciative to be in a free country, were able to live normal lives again–to the extent normal is possible after such life changing experiences.

According to one graphic in a display case, the mission of this exhibit is to shine “a light on the darkness of the Holocaust by creating awareness so that we are guided by leadership, respect, hope and that our history teaches love is stronger than hate and kindness is stronger than power.”

Come and see it with your own eyes.

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!