Por Ana Mengotti
Miami (EFE) representations of life and death in a tragic age.
The Holocaust Museum in St.Petersburg, a coastal city in west Florida, is preparing to host the 10.9-meter-long “Thor”, which is going to be exhibited next to a boxcar that was part of the railroad that went to the Treblinka field, in Poland, and since the 90s it has been the property of this cultural entity.
The trawler arrived in St. Petersburg in December 2022 in a special container that was shipped from Europe and then crossed the Florida peninsula from east to west on a truck.
Erin Blankenship, deputy director of the museum, told EFE that they had always told in exhibitions and events how in 1943 the Danes saved most of their Jewish compatriots by taking them on fishing boats to Sweden, a neutral country during World War II.
However, they wanted to do something “bigger” to highlight a historical fact that is considered exemplary and unique.
Two Florida-based women with ties to the museum, Irene Weiss and Margot Benstock, daughters of Danish Jewish Holocaust survivors, helped achieve the goal of bringing one such ship to St. Petersburg to display as “a beacon of hope.” and thus honor those who did “the right thing”
We all have options
“We were very lucky to be able to find this particular ship,” says Blankenship, who stresses that by putting “Thor” and the boxcar side by side, the museum wants to “point to the fact that each of us has options ”.
“Each of us can choose, you know, either stand by, look the other way, or become a perpetrator, or make the decision to do the right thing and help others,” he stressed.
Denmark was occupied by German military forces from 1940 to 1945, but racial laws were not strictly enforced until 1943, the year the Danes moved to the safety of their fellow Jews.
This is how 7,200 of the 7,400 Jews who were estimated to be living in Denmark at that time left the country.
This year the Holocaust Museum presented its annual humanitarian award to the Danish people represented by the ambassador of that country in Washington for that rescue operation and it is expected that on October 1st relatives of the victims will attend the official presentation ceremony of “Thor”. saviors and the saved.
Before, a conservator will clean, restore and do what is necessary to preserve the “Thor” for at least one hundred more years and the ship will be scanned to create 3D representations.
Hate keeps showing its face
Blankenship considers it “absolutely necessary” that museums like the one in St. Petersburg exist, because they are in charge of remembering “the millions of innocent people murdered by the Nazis”, but also because “the ugly head of hatred rears its head” and the anti-Setimism in the world and “this serves as a reminder of the worst that can happen from turning a blind eye.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in 2022 there were 3,697 anti-Semitic incidents in the United States, 36% more than the previous year and the average was 10 cases per day, the highest since the entity began records in 1979.
Mike Igel, the museum’s board chairman, told EFE that the lessons of the Holocaust are “absolutely essential for the success of society.”
“It is not an exaggeration, the Holocaust -he asserted- is an example of what happens when you see the worst in people, but it is also an example of what happens when you see the best in people. It’s the worst of humanity and the best of humanity at the same time.”
The grandson of survivors of Nazi persecution, Igel asserted that the Holocaust is not a Jewish problem, and neither is the museum.
“It’s important,” he said, “that everyone cares and steps up and fights the rise of anti-Semitism, because if you look the other way, you know you’re next. That is what history shows.”