The New York Public Library Honors Holocaust Remembrance Day With Commemorative Display

APRIL 23 -- The New York Public Library (NYPL) will be presenting a commemorative display in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day. The exhibition titled Holocaust Remembrance: From the Collections will feature the 1939 Warsaw (Poland) telephone directory from the Library’s Rare Book Division. In addition to the telephone directory, the exhibition will feature photos, books, and memories that chronicle the tragedy of the Holocaust. Holocaust Remembrance, sponsored by TD Bank, America’s Most Convenient Bank®, will be on display at the iconic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, in the McGraw Rotunda on the third floor, April 24 through May 7.

“It is our responsibility as a library to record and inform about moments in history — moments of great triumph or great tragedy,” said NYPL President Tony Marx. “Holocaust Remembrance is an exhibition that pays tribute to the millions affected by the horrors of the Holocaust and continues the legacy of survivors who vowed to ‘never forget.’ It is also an opportunity to educate others about such atrocities so that we can ensure ‘never again.’”

Holocaust Remembrance Day begins at sundown on April 27.

Warsaw had the largest Jewish population in Europe and the destruction of the city during World War II stands as a powerful representation of the tragedy of the war. The 1939 Warsaw telephone directory was published within months of the outbreak of war and captures a record of the Jews who lived there. The display also includes items from the Dorot Jewish Division, the Print Collection, and the Photography Collection:

• A photograph of the Warsaw Ghetto in ruins after the 1943 uprising,
• 71125, Fifty Years of Silence: Eva Kellner’s Story, an artist’s book by Tatana Kellner chronicling her mother’s experience in the concentration camps, which contains a reproduction of the camp tattoo on her arm,
• a postcard written to Sala Garncarz, who saved letters and postcards from family and friends during her years in Nazi forced-labor camps,
• a songsheet for the Yiddish ”Song of the Jewish Partisans” celebrating the Jewish Resistance, and
• the “Survivors’ Haggadah” — a special edition published in 1946 for U.S. servicemen stationed in occupied Germany for the first Passover following the fall of the Nazis, which compares Adolph Hitler to Pharaoh and Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to Moses.

The exhibition will also contain a video component featuring images from the photo album Jews in Poland, 1942–1944. The images with their original captions are also available online through the Library’s Digital Collections website at digitalcollections.nypl.org.

Holocaust Remembrance will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays; and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays.

TD Bank is Lead Sponsor of The New York Public Library’s 2014 flash displays.

Support for The New York Public Library’s Exhibitions Program has been provided by Celeste Bartos, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos and Adam Bartos Exhibitions Fund, and Jonathan Altman. 

About The New York Public Library

The New York Public Library is a free provider of education and information for the people of New York and beyond. With 92 locations—including research and branch libraries—throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, the Library offers free materials, computer access, classes, exhibitions, programming and more to everyone from toddlers to scholars, and has seen record numbers of attendance and circulation in recent years. The New York Public Library serves more than 18 million patrons who come through its doors annually and millions more around the globe who use its resources at www.nypl.org. To offer this wide array of free programming, The New York Public Library relies on both public and private funding. Learn more about how to support the Library at nypl.org/support.