Programs

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”
Elie Wiesel

Spring 2020 Donor Mission to Auschwitz and Poland

ABMF Board Members and Co-Chairs of the Philadelphia Pillar, Joseph Finkelstein and Lewis Gantman, will lead a Donor Mission to Auschwitz and Poland in April of 2020.

As Global rates of Anti-Semitic incidents rise alarmingly around the world, we can’t help but be reminded of a time not so long ago when unchecked hatred was given free reign, leading to the annihilation of millions. You are invited to bring your spouse and your adult children to bear witness to the evidence of atrocities, as we honor our promise to Never Forget.

Our journey will include Warsaw and Krakow, and of course, Auschwitz-Birkenau. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, you will experience a unique, behind-the-scenes, private VIP tour of the world class preservation laboratories and see firsthand the conservation work made possible by the ABMF.

Our Pre & Post Mission Scholar will be Rabbi Ira Stone, a leading figure in the contemporary renewal of the Musar movement, a Jewish ethical movement. Rabbi Stone will offer preparatory classes in advance of the trip that will offer a lens through which to view the events of the past, and what impact those events have on us today as Jews and citizens of the world.

If you are interested in bringing this exhibit to your community, please contact us here.

Forbidden Art Exhibit

ABMF is proud to announce a new partnership with the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia. The National Liberty Museum has opened “Forbidden Art” — an exhibit of 20 images created by Jewish and Polish prisoners of Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945. While Nazis commissioned some of the art made in the camp, this art was made in secret despite the grave risk to the artists.

This exhibition is part of the larger mission of ABMF to spread awareness about the atrocities committed at Auschwitz and to restore and preserve the art, artifacts, and architecture of the former concentration camp.

The exhibit includes art made to document the brutality of Auschwitz and art that contrasts people’s lives during imprisonment with how they lived before. There are works that helped prisoners imagine escaping and even caricatures of German guards, meant to offer humor in the midst of tragedy.

Liberty Museum CEO Gwen Borowski hopes that attendees will learn that being a bystander to bigotry, and failing to intervene, makes you complicit. She wants people to speak out against injustice. “We are not partisan,” she said of the museum. “It’s about protecting this fragile freedom and liberty that we have. It’s art that tells an unbelievable story of resistance and survival and identity.”

If you are interested in bringing this exhibit to your community, please contact Maria Zalewska.

Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. Exhibition

Under the leadership of our Chairman, Ronald S. Lauder, ABMF is honored to be a presenting sponsor of an epic exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, A Living Memorial to the Holocaust.

This groundbreaking exhibition brings together more than 700 original objects and 400 photographs from over 20 institutions and museums around the world. Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. is the most comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the history of Auschwitz and its role in the Holocaust ever presented in North America, and an unparalleled opportunity to confront the singular face of human evil—one that arose not long ago and not far away.

Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. arrives in New York City after the exhibition completed a successful run at Madrid’s Arte Canal Exhibition Centre, where it was extended two times, drew more than 600,000 visitors, and was one of the most visited exhibitions in Europe last year. The exhibition explores the dual identity of the camp as a physical location—the largest documented mass murder site in human history—and as a symbol of the borderless manifestation of hatred and human barbarity.

Featuring more than 700 original objects and 400 photographs, the New York presentation of the exhibition allows visitors to experience artifacts from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on view for the first time in North America, including hundreds of personal items—such as suitcases, eyeglasses, and shoes—that belonged to survivors and victims of Auschwitz. Other artifacts include concrete posts that were part of the fence of the Auschwitz camp; fragments of an original barrack for prisoners from the Auschwitz III-Monowitz camp; a desk and other possessions of the first and the longest serving Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss; a gas mask used by the SS; Picasso’s Lithograph of Prisoner; and an original German-made Model 2 freight train car used for the deportation of Jews to the ghettos and extermination camps in occupied Poland.