| Holocaust survivor Norman Frajman looks at photographs from the Warsaw ghetto during the opening of “The Courage to Remember” exhibit at Zinman Hall in West Boca Raton. (Staff photo/Kimberli DiMare / October 29, 2013) |
“Out of 500,000 people, only 50,000 were left when I was taken,” Norman Frajman said as he looked at the 60-year-old photographs of the Warsaw ghetto on the opening night of “The Courage to Remember” Holocaust exhibit. “It’s hard to see these things. You’re hardened but you still have tears in your eyes,” the Holocaust survivor from Boynton Beach said.
The exhibit, which was developed by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and features more than 200 exclusive photographs, was at Zinman Hall on the campus of the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County in West Boca Raton from Oct. 24 through 27. It was previously in Fort Lauderdale at St. Thomas Aquinas High School and Davie at the David Posnack Jewish Community Center.
We live in a different climate but we face anti-Semitism not heard of since the 1930s, Alfred Balitzer, chairman of the board of the Foundation for California which funds the exhibit on its tours, told an Oct. 21 opening night audience.
The exhibit will go to Africa after being well received in the United States, Japan, China, Singapore and India, Balitzer said. “Non-Jewish audiences have a great taste to learn more about the Holocaust and what happened to the Jewish people.” And there is Holocaust denial, “the mother’s milk of terrorism [that] attempts to undermine the legitimacy of Israel,” he said.
The Journey from 1939 to where we are today is about going from powerlessness to power,” said Matthew C. Levin, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County, whose Jewish Community Relations Council brought the exhibit to West Boca Raton where it was viewed by adults and more than 500 school children.
