Tag: holocaust

Holocaust survivor creates sculptures from memory.

RUTH: Remember Us The Holocaust, an exhibit previously shown at the Chula Vista and La Jolla libraries, recently moved into a space on the second floor of San Diego’s downtown Central Library. I visited it yesterday.

The exhibit seeks to teach about the horrors of the Holocaust, how its survivors have persevered, and how we must not forget or allow such unspeakable evil to happen ever again.

RUTH: Remember Us The Holocaust has the goal of establishing a permanent museum in San Diego, possibly at Liberty Station. I support this goal whole-heartedly. Visit their website by clicking here.

I noticed during my visit to the Central Library that one display case, near the center of the exhibit, contains emotionally powerful works of ceramic sculpture. I took photos and learned about them.

The artist, Maria Jutasi Coleman, is a San Diegan who survived the Holocaust. For decades she kept painful memories of the genocide she witnessed private. She finally came to a time in her life when she could allow the silenced memories to surface through her art.

That’s her in the next photo.

RUTH: Remember Us The Holocaust tells the stories of many Holocaust survivors who’ve lived in San Diego.

Here are some of the ceramic sculptures created by Maria. She states that they are made of dust of the earth, as my beloveds, along with six million other Jews, have since become.

When people, young and old, look at what has emerged from my unconscious, I hope a flag of warning arises that says, “Don’t let this happen again anywhere.”

Sandy Scheller, caretaker of the exhibit, showed me one haunting sculpture with streaks of red in its base. She explained the color comes from a crushed brick taken from Auschwitz.

I urge anyone with a beating heart to visit the exhibit and spread the word about it. Perhaps consider sharing this post, which is much more important than most.

Thank you.

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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.

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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.

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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!