Holocaust exhibit comes to Charlotte documenting victims’ lives before World War II
Few people likely know much about the lives of individual Jews before they perished during the Holocaust — or even about the lives of those who committed those atrocities.
But last January, that’s a perspective which captured scholar Judy La Pietra’s imagination when she first saw “Seeing Auschwitz,” in London. It’s an exhibit of 100 curated photos, sketches and testimonies depicting the lives and worlds of both Holocaust victims and the Nazi perpetrators who caused it.
The exhibit was something that La Pietra, the associate director with the Stan Greenspon Center of Holocaust and Social Justice Education at Queens University of Charlotte wanted to bring to the city.
A year later, the traveling exhibit, hosted by the Greenspon Center, will make its U.S. debut Feb. 9 at the Visual and Performing Arts Center. It humanizes many untold stories of the Holocaust, which claimed the lives of 6 million Jews.
The exhibit lends a small snapshot of the Auschwitz complex which had more than 40 concentration camps, where more than a million people were murdered.
The visuals come from two photo albums curated after World War II by experts in Holocaust history and education, La Pietra said.
The first is called the Auschwitz album, which is largely a collection of personal photos and portraits from victims’ families of their lives before being forced to Auschwitz. The second, called the Hoecker Album, are photos of the Nazis who committed those crimes and their activities at Auschwitz, La Pietra said.
“They’re not photos in the camps, per se. We’re building a picture of life and what was lost,” La Pietra said. “It’s not a very scholarly approach to Auschwitz, but rather, presented in a way that kind of everyday people without any background knowledge can really understand what took place. And that is the goal, you know, to touch people with this history.”
What visitors will see at ‘Seeing Auschwitz’
The exhibit is by Musealia, a Spanish organization dedicated to exploring powerful stories through exhibitions, in collaboration with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, the United Nations and UNESCO, according to a news release from the Greenspon Center. To date the exhibit only has appeared in London and in Durban, South Africa.
Visitors in Charlotte can expect to see photos and whole wall displays of maps showing the transports.
Each piece of media is accompanied with an audio component. La Pietra believes the exhibit is a welcome arrival amid escalating antisemitism around the nation, some sparked by tensions created in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.
La Pietra said this exhibit can help reinforce the Holocaust history for the broader community, especially for deniers and revisionists of the genocide.
“There is a challenge, quite honestly, to the historical record that we’re seeing now,” La Pietra said. “I think it speaks to the power of the individual in society, and what our roles are, and how we can impact the direction our country takes. So there’s a lot to be gained at this point.”
Holocaust education in NC
The photo exhibit is free to North Carolina students in grades 7 through 12. In the year it has taken La Pietra’s modest staff set up the exhibit at VAPA — including creating graphics — more than 4,000 students from around the region and points north already are scheduled to come and see it, she said.
One reason for the draw is the state’s new Gizella Abramson Holocaust Education Act of 2021. The measure sets aside funding to create and teach a Holocaust curriculum for all North Carolina middle and high school students.
La Pietra said the timeliness of the exhibit coming to North Carolina now is serendipitous.
“It means that at some point in a student’s middle school or high school experience, they have to be exposed to Holocaust history in some way, shape, or form,” she said. “The response that we’re getting from schools and teachers (is) that educators are kind of hungry for this type of experience for their students.
“It’s done in a way that respects the viewer. It’s not a graphic exposé of the Auschwitz camp. It asks us to really consider ... to look through the eyes of the... perpetrator and the victim, and to ask really deep questions. I think educators really are embracing this opportunity.”
Want to go?
What: ‘Seeing Auschwitz’
Where: 9189 Studio Gallery at VAPA, 700 N.Tryon Street
When: Feb. 9-April 15
Cost: $8.50 children 12 and under; $15 for adults.
Exhibit hours: Monday, closed; Tuesday-Wednesday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, 12-5 p.m.
More info and to purchase tickets: https://seeingauschwitz.com/charlotte/
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