First Holocaust Museum to Be Inaugurated in São Paulo

11/06/2017 - 12h59

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DIANA LOTT

FROM SÃO PAULO

On November 12, São Paulo will begin to host its first permanent exhibition dedicated to the Jewish Holocaust.

The Memorial of Jewish Immigration, where the first synagogue in the state of São Paulo is located, in the neighborhood of Bom Retiro, will have a floor entirely dedicated to the Holocaust and will be renamed Memorial of Jewish Immigration and of the Holocaust.

The decision to create the exhibition is justified by the historic moment, says Reuven Faingold, the director of educational projects of the memorial and a member of curatorship team.

"The generation of survivors is reducing and soon there will be none left. All there will be is the documents and the museums and memorials around the world," says Faingold.

He believes that Brazil is "trying to make up for lost time." With only one museum dedicated to the Holocaust, in the city of Curitiba, Faingold says that most of the students who visit the memorial do not know much about that part of history.

"Students hear that the Holocaust occurred, that Jewish people died in World War II. In the best case scenario, they heard that six million Jews were killed, but that is all they know," says Faingold.

Divulgação Memorial of Jewish Immigration and of the Holocaust

With the new exhibition, the memorial expects to expand its educational projects. Today the building located at 160 Graça street receives students of private and public schools of the ninth year of high school or above.

One of the focuses of the exhibition, paid for with resources of the Brazilian Jewish community and the support of incentive laws, is to separate genocides from the Holocaust. "We have seen several cases of genocide, but only one Holocaust," says Faingold.

"Not only the number of victims is different, but also the way it was carried out. There was an extermination mechanism created by the 3rd Reich," says Faingold, referring to the systematic mass murders.

Translated by THOMAS MUELLO

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