I visited a Holocaust museum.

[Yeshuasdaughter]

This afternoon we went to the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.

It was fascinating. There were several exhibits. Wrapped in every exhibit was a thread of civil rights, and the respect for all persons and cultures.

I realized when I got home, that I took over sixty photos.

I am going to post some of them here.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

First thing that caught my eye were a couple of ketubas. Sacred Jewish marriage contracts. Signed joyfully under the chuppa (wedding canopy that symbolizes God overshadowing the couple).

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

In this photo on the far left, is a cloak that a man wears during his bar mitzvah, his wedding, during prayer, and it is what he is buried in.

In the center of the photo is another wedding contract (ketubah).

And in the center bottom is a traditional Sephardic (North African and Hispanic Jewish) wedding ring.

The silver cups on the right side are kiddush cups. The cups in which wine is drank during sacred ceremonies and holidays, such as Shabbat, Passover, Weddings, etc.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Upstairs was an exhibit dedicated to the Holocaust.

"My father, having served in the First World War for the Kaiser, was one of the German Jews who could not believe that the Germans would ever do this to a totally assimilated Jew."
~Eva Rickles

The Jews removed to ghettos and camps.

Burning of the books.

Concentration camps of Europe

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

On the floor, one can find tiles that state how many Jewish men, women, and little children died in each European country during the Holocaust.

Three million were murdered in Poland alone. Nowadays, even after generations of families growing, there are less than five thousand Jewish individuals left in Poland. let that sink in.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

In 1939, Alice Weiss was lucky to get out of Germany. She emigrated to Shanghai, China. One of the few nations that were friendly to Jewish refugees.

Her passport is covered in Nazi stamps, with a big J on it, marking her as a Jewess.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Anne Frank, and her father.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

The Concentration Camps issued currency to the prisoners, to lull them into a false sense of safety.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Wrapped in every exhibit was the importance of each human being's right to dignity, self direction, and universal human rights.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

There was a very dim room, hallowed. For the international victims of genocide.

In Syria, hundreds of political prisoners, men, women, children were interred for speaking out against the government abuses of human rights.

Speak out, and suddenly, the person disappeared. Kidnapped by the al Assad regime.

There was a group of imprisoned civil rights activists who scrawled the names of eighty "disappeared" interred persons on scraps of cloth, using their own blood as ink. The scraps managed to get smuggled out. And with that, the world knew the names of kidnapped, imprisoned activists.

One of the freed captives smuggled the cloths out of Syria and donated them to the Oregon Jewish Museum.

Items found on murdered Tutsi people of Rwanda.

A little girl's shoe.
A rosary.
And an ID card, that easily could reveal the ethnic group and tribe to terrorists seeking to eliminate an entire culture.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

I knew that Oregon was a Confederate and Jim Crow state. It was illegal for black people to even live in Oregon. In 1844, when Oregon was only a territory, the Black Exclusion Act was signed, making it a felony for a black person to own property, sign contracts, or even settle in Oregon. When it became a state, Oregon took the measures further.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Maps were even available, in Multnomah county, published by the Department of Public Works, to reveal where people of color, and whites that were seen as less than resided.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

In 2022, in Southwest Portland, a Jewish family's home was set ablaze by antisemitic arsonists. As they were throwing their belongings in the dumpster, they came upon their living room piano. It had brought learning and music to three generations of their family.

They didn't want to throw it away with everything else. It was too precious to their hearts. A local artist took the piano and turned it into several works of art, even using the strings to weave a tapestry.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

I learned so much about the enduring spirit of the Jewish people. And also about human rights causes around the globe, and close to home.

There were exhibits of beautiful historic Judaica used in synagogues and homes, documenting the eternal, beautiful circle of life, and devotion from generation to generation to God. L'olam va'ed.

A Torah Scroll, and in the foreground, a Torah Scribe's pen and ink set.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

The Hand of God

The Tree of Life

The Israeli Declaration of Independence

 

[Misty Avich]

I've been to Auschwitz, Poland. It was awful yet fascinating.

I love Anne Frank.

 

[MNAus]

I've been to Auschwitz, Poland. It was awful yet fascinating.

Never went. My partner's family have a pretty tragic history through that and other camps. She'd rather that I not so I respect her wishes.

 

[Judge]

I knew that Oregon was a Confederate and Jim Crow state.

Oregon was never a formal state of the Confederacy. However when you examine your state's political history, at times it may have appeared as if it was. It did have its share of Southern sympathizers who certainly did exert their influence both during and after the war.

As for Jim Crow, sadly that much is true, as in the case of many other non-southern states as well. All practicing overt, legal discrimination against Black Americans up until and even beyond when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law.

An interesting account of Oregon both during and after the War Between The States:

https://www.ohs.org/oregon-historic...mith_Oregon-s-Civil-War_115_2_Summer-2014.pdf

 

[Judge]

Haunting to see his photograph along with his daughter Anne Frank. Poor Mr. Otto Frank. To think he was the only member of his family who survived, and yet lived until 1980. Enduring half a lifetime of such grief. RIP Otto Frank 1889-1980.