by Loren Jersey
SKOKIE, IL. — From April 19 through April 26, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. will lead the nation in remembering the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. Observances will be held in communities, state houses, city halls, churches, and synagogues across the United States and at military installations worldwide.
But Max Bernhard of the Holocaust Re-creation Society (HRS) feels that remembrance and museums are mere lip-service, and actually are doing more harm than good. “People are bored with ‘we will never forget’ slogans and somber museum visits,” he explains. “I mean barf-bag usage is down 99% at holocaust museums across the nation. Television, Hollywood and the media bombard us with scenes of violence which desensitize us to the anguish and the inhumanity of them,” He protests, “making them nothing more than morbidly curious images. The horror and the pain are gone.”
To bring the horror of it to life, the HRS uses hundreds of professional actors to stage truly horrific re-enactments of Nazi persecution and torture. “Words are never enough, and even pictures fall short of communicating the horrors of persecution and torture. What we do” says Mr. Bernhard “is put the human back into Nazi atrocities.”
Many of the actors, who take their roles very seriously, have been starving themselves to get into character. “It also helps with the latex appliances,” says Abbey Goldstein, one of HRS makeup artists, “you know so they don’t look too puffy.”
“I think pictures can do more harm than good, but a lump of quivering blackened flesh” says Mr. Bernhard, describing one of the more dramatic scenes, “which then slowly reaches out to you, pleading, with the anguish of unspeakable torture in eyes you realize belong to a 15 year old girl – that will be burned into your mind forever. That you will never forget!”
The HRS has many levels of interactivity to suit every person. People can see torture, they can interact with the actors, they can be subjected to Nazi raids, and for the truly jaded, “we have concentrated concentration camps,” explains Berhard, “in which we will subject you to levels of degradation, humiliation, smells, sounds and near-torture guaranteed to crack the toughest cynic.”
When asked about the criticism HRS has received from Jewish leaders and synagogues, Max laughed. “Sure our methods are extreme,” he says “but look at the results; 8000 used barf bags in just two days! You can’t see numbers like that and say we aren’t making a difference!”
“What we always have to be mindful of, is that this is our only protection against daily persecution. We are this close to being thrown into concentration camps.” He says pinching his thumb and forefinger together for emphasis “We have to do this, and we have to do it often. We have to make damn sure nobody ever forgets how terribly we have suffered, and how terribly we are still suffering.”