Holocaust Museum LA facts for kids
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| Former name | Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust |
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| Established | 1961 |
| Location | Pan Pacific Park 100 S The Grove Dr Fairfax District, Los Angeles, CA 90036 |
| Type | Holocaust/history museum |
| Visitors | 500,000 |
The Holocaust Museum LA, once called the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, is a special museum in Pan Pacific Park in Los Angeles, California. It was started in 1961 by people who survived the Holocaust. This makes it the oldest museum of its kind in the United States. Its main goal is to remember those who died in the Holocaust. It also honors the survivors, teaches about this terrible time, and inspires everyone to create a kinder world.
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History of the Museum
Holocaust Museum LA is the oldest museum in the U.S. that was founded by Holocaust survivors. In 1961, a group of survivors met in an English class in Hollywood. They quickly realized they shared a strong desire to remember the past. They started meeting to talk about their own experiences. They wanted to honor their lost family and friends. They also felt it was important to teach future generations.
These survivors had many personal items. These included photos, artifacts, and documents. They decided these precious objects needed a permanent home. This home would be a safe place for remembering, preserving, and learning. The museum opened its special underground building in Pan Pacific Park in October 2010. Since then, over 500,000 people have visited.
Learning at the Museum
The museum offers many ways to learn about the Holocaust. It aims to educate visitors of all ages.
Programs for Everyone
It's free for all students and California residents to visit the museum. You can explore the museum on your own. A free audio guide is available to help you. Museum staff and guides also offer tours throughout the week. The museum hosts public events both in person and online. These include talks with Holocaust survivors, lectures, film showings, and concerts. In 2020, the museum started "Building Bridges." This series brings together leaders from different communities. They discuss how to work together for social justice.
Special Programs for Students
Museum tours are made to fit California's school lessons about the Holocaust. Museum staff work with teachers to create each tour. They make sure it matches the students' age, what they already know, and their interests. The museum uses personal stories, many artifacts, and technology to share this history. The “Art & Memory” program connects survivors with teenagers each year. Teens learn about their own history. They then retell the survivors’ stories. They share their thoughts through art like film, theater, and photography.
Museum Building and Design
In 2010, the museum moved into its permanent home. This building was designed by a famous architect named Hagy Belzberg. The museum's president, E. Randol Schoenberg, helped make this move happen. His story of getting back a famous painting was even shown in the movie Woman in Gold.
The building's design connects with the park around it. The museum has three main areas. These are the indoor museum space, the Goldrich Family Foundation Children's Memorial, and the outdoor Martyrs Memorial.
Inside the Museum
As you walk through the museum, the light and space change. This change shows how time passed through history. The exhibits are set up in order of time. They show Jewish life before the Holocaust. They also cover important events from 1933 to 1945. The museum has many original items from that time. Holocaust Museum LA has one of the largest collections of these artifacts in the United States.
Remembering Children
The Children's Memorial is an outdoor space for quiet thought. It remembers the approximately 1.5 million children who died in the Holocaust. There are 1.2 million holes of different sizes in the walls. Visitors can write messages to the children. A small Garden of the Righteous honors non-Jewish people. These brave individuals risked their lives to save others.
Honoring the Martyrs
The Martyr's Memorial monument was built in the early 1990s. It has six 18-foot-high triangular pillars made of black granite. Each pillar honors one of the 6 million Jewish people who were murdered. These pillars also stand for the smokestacks of the crematoria.
The building's design has won several awards. These include the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission Design Honor Award. It also received the Green Building Design Award and a Gold LEED rating. This rating is a national standard for buildings that are good for the environment. The museum's award-winning design helps tell the sad and important history inside its walls.
Special Exhibitions
The museum features many powerful exhibitions:
- Tour Holocaust Museum LA from Home!
- Dimensions in Testimony: Renee Firestone: This exhibit lets you interact with a survivor's story.
- Tree of Testimony: This is a large video sculpture with 70 screens. It shows 52,000 survivor stories from the USC Shoah Foundation. You can use your audio guide to listen to any of the stories. Since there are so many stories, each survivor is shown at least once a year. This means every visitor will hear a different story. Survivors speak in up to 32 different languages at any time.
- The Sobibor Model: Sobibor was one of the main camps where the Nazis carried out their plan to murder Jewish people in Poland. A survivor named Thomas Blatt built a model of the Sobibor camp from his memory. It is always on display at the museum. A video screen above the model shows Blatt talking about his experiences. Blatt was one of 250 prisoners who planned and escaped from Sobibor. He was one of only about 50 who survived.
- Symbols of Hate: This exhibit teaches about symbols used by hate groups.
- Childhood Left at the Station: This exhibit explores the experiences of children during the Holocaust.
- Children's Memorial: This outdoor space is dedicated to the children who died.
Future Plans
The number of visitors to the museum has grown a lot since 2011. Because of this, plans for an expansion began in 2021. The new Jona Goldrich Campus will also be designed by architect Hagy Belzberg. It will add new indoor and outdoor spaces, doubling the museum's size in Pan Pacific Park. The museum hopes to reach more people and be more visible. In June 2022, Susan and Eric Smidt gave $5 million to help build the Jona Goldrich Campus.
A new Learning Center Pavilion will be built next to the current building. It will have a special theater with 200 seats. This theater will be used for films, concerts, and public programs. The pavilion will also have outdoor spaces for reflection. There will be two classrooms for large student groups and programs for younger kids. It will also have a special exhibit space. In addition, a new Boxcar Pavilion will be built on top of the existing building. This pavilion will house a real boxcar found near the Majdanek camp in Poland.
See also
- History of the Jews in Los Angeles
- Jews and Judaism in Los Angeles topics
- Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service of Austrian Service Abroad — Holocaust Museum LA participates
- List of Holocaust memorials and museums in the United States
