Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland’s Bob Hope Theater took on a somber tone on Holocaust Remembrance Day May 4 while hosting a remembrance commemoration ceremony and a display meant to educate and memorialize the tragedy that took place nearly 80 years ago.
During the week, the exposition was displayed at JBSA-Lackland’s library as part of Holocaust Remembrance Week, which this year was themed “Learning from Holocaust Acts of Courage.”
Visitors were able to read testimonies of survivors and victims of the era, thumb through various artwork and even take home interactive booklets that described life for people of Jewish descent in Germany and other parts of Europe in the mid 20th century.
The Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio provided the exposition, which consisted of books, journals, placards and pictures of historical figures related to the time period. The museum, located inside the Jewish Campus of San Antonio at 12500 Northwest Military Highway, is dedicated to preserving the memory of those who lost their lives in the Holocaust, while also honoring the survivors.
“We’re here to educate our community about the dangers of hatred and prejudice,” said Matthew Faulkner, museum programs manager.
Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom Hashoah, annually corresponds with the 27th day of Nisan, the first month on the Hebrew ecclesiastical calendar. The day also marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, a 1943 rebellion by Polish Jews and other resistance fighters in Warsaw, Poland, against the occupying Nazi forces there.
More than 13,000 Jews lost their lives in the fight, after which the Nazis continued to deport more than 50,000 occupants of the Warsaw ghetto to concentration camps -which was itself essentially a death sentence, according to U.S. Department of State records.
The display was a good fit at JBSA-Lackland, Faulkner explained, because San Antonio is home to eight holocaust survivors.
“It’s critical for people to hear the survivors’ testimonies, hear all the pain they endured,” he said. “People tend to forget history like this when it’s not directly in front of them.”
The display was meant to resonate especially with military members, as the U.S. military played a key role in liberating and caring for survivors of the Holocaust at the close of World War II and into the subsequent decades. Faulkner hoped that visitors to the JBSA-Lackland display would take home a renewed vigilance against modern-day hatred.
“Crimes, just like what happened in the Holocaust, can still happen today,” he warned. “The world is still dealing with hatred and discrimination, and it’s important to educate people — and our military — that genocide is still a threat in today’s world.