In the sixth of Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City’s Community Conversation series, Jessica Rockhold, executive director of the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education, shared more details about MCHE’s partnership with Union Station and the upcoming exhibition “Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away.”
During her virtual conversation (as excerpted below) with Helene Lotman, Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City president and CEO, Rockhold emphasized the impact and significance of having this exhibition come to Kansas City.
“Unless you have the opportunity to go to Poland yourself and walk into a camp… you’re not going to see these kinds of artifacts,” she said. “This is the second and the last North American stop. The fact that it’s coming to our community is incredible. It’s a truly impactful exhibit.”
The exhibition contains 700 artifacts and 400 photographs, featuring everything from the actual machinery of Auschwitz to the personal possessions people brought with them on the deportation trains to the camp.
MCHE’s role in the exhibition is as the educational partner for Union Station. That includes setting up speaker events (some of which Rockhold hopes will be able to be conducted in person), providing docent training, and writing educational materials and conducting courses for teachers.
“Essentially, anything that is educational in term of supplemental programing for this exhibit, MCHE is touching,” Rockhold said. “This is something I understand to be special and unique. Union Station often brings in amazing exhibits, but this is the most robust educational content surrounding an exhibit that they’ve presented to the community, so we’ve very excited to be able to provide that.”
Rockhold said all of the educational programming will be available virtually, and she is working with the team at Union Station and exhibition curators in Madrid on the possibility of a video tour or another way for those who can’t travel can still experience it.
“There is something incredible about the tangibility of the artifacts,” she said. “They make what we’ve learned in books or what we have heard from survivors or read from their testimonies so very real and understandable in a new and unique way, and I think that’s going to be incredible for our community.”
“Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away.” opens in June. More information and advanced tickets are available at www.unionstation.org/auschwitz-not-long-ago-not-far-away.
