"The U.S. and the Holocaust," a new documentary by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, examines the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany in the context of global antisemitism and racism, immigration and eugenics in the United States, and race laws in the American south. Premieres Sept. 20.
In the 1960s, a group of Los Angeles-based Holocaust survivors met and discovered that each of them had a photograph, document or personal item from before World War II — and decided that these artifacts needed a permanent home where they could be displayed safely and in perpetuity.
They founded the Holocaust Museum LA (then known as the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust) in 1961 — the first of its kind in the U.S. and currently the country’s oldest Holocaust museum.
The Holocaust Museum LA is brimming artifacts that document the experiences of victims of Nazi persecution and Jewish refugees, as well as liberators, perpetrators and even bystanders. | Sandi Hemmerlein
Today, located in its permanent home in Pan Pacific Park since 2010, the museum memorializes loved ones who were lost in the Holocaust and helps keep their memory alive — and honors those who survived.
In its collection are artifacts that document the experiences of victims of Nazi persecution and Jewish refugees, as well as liberators, perpetrators and even bystanders.
Here are 10 of Holocaust Museum LA’s most intriguing relics that weathered the Holocaust.
1. The Blüthner Piano
This piano — the largest artifact in the museum’s collection — belonged to a Jewish, Budapest-born conductor named Alfred Sendrey, the first conductor of the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra and director of Central German Radio in Berlin. The Blüthner family — of Blüthner Piano Company, which manufactured it — stored this piano for the Sendreys when they escaped to Paris in 1933. After the Sendreys immigrated to the U.S. in 1940 and settled in Los Angeles, the Blüthner family unexpectedly returned their piano to them. In L.A., Sendrey became a professor of musicology at American Jewish University and the music director at both Sinai Temple and Fairfax Synagogue. | Sandi Hemmerlein
2. Concentration Camp Uniforms
Two camp uniforms appear in a glass case under the German slogan, "Arbeit macht frei," which translates to mean "Work sets you free." These words were found at the entrance of Nazi concentration camps like Auschwitz. The uniform on the right belonged to Jacob Meller, who sewed a hidden pocket on the inside to store bread. He wore it at the Dachau concentration camp for nearly 11 months and immigrated to the U.S. in 1951. | Sandi Hemmerlein
3. John Maitland's Rolleicord Camera
U.S. soldier John Maitland (3rd Army, XX Corps, 3rd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron) used this circa 1930s Rolleicord Camera to document the horrors of WWII concentration camps like Ebensee as he helped liberate prisoners in Austria. | Sandi Hemmerlein
Army medic Private First Class Lester Luber collected this Luftwaffe (German Air Force) helmet as a war trophy. He inscribed the helmet with many markings reflecting his experience in WWII, including "E.T.O." (European Theater of Operation), 32nd General Hospital (which his Company B of the 327th Medical Battalion was attached to) and "Kaput," an adopted German word which he used to reference the collapse of the Nazi regime. | Sandi Hemmerlein
5. Silver Spoon
In the 1940s, members of the Resistance made "coin spoons" — silver spoons consisting of twisted wire and two Dutch coins — and distributed them among the group as a means of identifying each other. The secret eventually got out, so Resistance members then sold the spoons to raise money for the Underground movement. | Sandi Hemmerlein
6. Antisemitic Children's Literature
Elementary classrooms in Germany used antisemitic books for children like this one, circa 1936, featuring caricatures of Jews that starkly contrasted to their depictions of Aryans. The English translation of this book’s title is "Trust No Fox in a Green Meadow and No Jew upon His Oath." | Sandi Hemmerlein
7. Donated Artifacts from the Glass Family
At just three years old, John (Joachim) Glass could only bring along very few items — and nothing of any real value — when his family immigrated to the U.K. from Germany in 1939. The Glass Family, which donated some of these items from their private collection, emigrated to the U.S. in 1940. John later became a prominent sociologist and political activist in California. | Sandi Hemmerlein
8. Paul Glass' Typewriter
The typewriter of Paul Glass, an electrical engineer fired from the Berlin recording company Telefunken because he was Jewish in 1938. Paul's son John used to love to play on this typewriter. | Sandi Hemmerlein
9. A Recording of Lisa Jura's Performance of Chopin's Polonaise
Vienna-born Lisa Jura fled Austria without her family in 1938 and relocated to the U.K. Around 1940, she recorded her performance of Chopin’s Polonaise for her boyfriend at the time, Max, and later became a professional pianist and immigrated to the U.S. | Sandi Hemmerlein
10. Misguided U.S. Newspaper Headlines
The museum’s displays of headlines and front pages of the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner from 1933 to 1945 pose the question: What did Angelenos know? You can find reproductions of these newspapers mounted in glass display cases outside each of the museum’s galleries — like a March 28, 1933 Los Angeles Times article titled "Nazis Plan Boycotts: Defense of Jews Resented," which states that the Nazis were only boycotting Jewish businesses to retailiate against the boycott against German goods, which foreign interests had threatened because of reports of German antisemitism. | Sandi Hemmerlein
Beginning September 17, 2022, museum visitors can take a free tour of the collection specially themed as a companion to "The U.S. and the Holocaust," available Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. for a limited time. The museum is free to all visitors on Sundays from 2 to 5 p.m. and always free to students with valid ID and children age 17 and under.
You can also tour Holocaust Museum LA virtually from home with its immersive 360-degree online tour.
