Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust
The Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LAMOTH) is a museum in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles .
history
The Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust is the oldest Holocaust museum in the United States . In 1961, a group of Holocaust survivors who had met in the English as a Foreign Language course at Hollywood High School talked about their experiences. They quickly realized that each of them had photographs, objects, concentration camp uniforms or other valuable items from the Holocaust period, and decided to give these items a permanent home, where they could not only be kept safe but also shown. They also realized that they needed a place to remember the dead and to teach the world about events that must not be forgotten. Many of the founders are still active in the museum today.
For the past 45 years, the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust has done a unique job in the field of Holocaust education . The LAMH was the first museum in the country to offer a training program for teachers to improve the handling of the sensitive issue of the Holocaust in classrooms. The museum also created the first Catholic - Jewish dialogue in California and a dialogue between the families of the victims and the perpetrators in the 1980s. The museum brought out the first Spanish guide and in 2003 hosted the first exhibition on the Holocaust ever shown in Cuba . The museum regularly hosts various exhibitions, among other things, it was the first in the country to address the subject of “The persecution of homosexuals in the Third Reich ”. Recently, the museum created a photographic exhibition entitled "Encountering the Cambodian Genocide" (Meeting with the Cambodian genocide ), dealing with the Pol Pot occupied regime of the 1970s and compares it to the Holocaust.
Since 2007 an Austrian memorial service can be done in the museum . The duties of the memorial servants include cataloging and archiving items, translation work, library work, conducting tours and working with Holocaust survivors. In 2009, memorial service founder Andreas Maislinger and Oscar winner Branko Lustig received the Lifetime Achievement Award.
The LAMOTH has been located in Pan Pacific Park since October 2010, in a building designed by the “Belzberg Architects” group from Santa Monica .
tasks
The LAMOTH is one of the few free museums in Los Angeles. The founders insisted that no visitor would ever be unable to visit the museum for financial reasons. That is why free transport to and from the museum is organized for schools that otherwise cannot afford excursions. This makes the museum particularly attractive for financially disadvantaged schools. The museum has few employees. But these are all behind the task and the motto of the museum "Education and Remembrance".
The main target audience for the museum is the Los Angeles youth. Every year around 10,000 schoolchildren, most of whom belong to ethnic minorities (Afro-American, Hispanic, Asians, ...) are shown through the museum. The museum also serves the public and other social groups.
Since it was founded in 1961, the museum has essentially had two goals:
- Commemoration: The museum was designed by its founders to house items from World War II , the ghettos and the concentration camps . Therefore, the museum defines itself as the primary source for original photographs , objects and documents .
- Educate: The museum offers its visitors the experience of interactive learning in a suitable setting. It is also the only Holocaust organization in Los Angeles that offers dialogue with Holocaust survivors.
Web links
- Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (English)
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 34 ° 3 '50 " N , 118 ° 22' 9.4" W.