SWEATER MILL-EXP-JUNE.qxp_S MILL 6/3/23 2:26 PM Page 1
local Holocaust
Awareness Museum
Distributing Art to
Local Schools
Jarrad Saffren | Staff Writer
Photo by Lisa Marlowe
T he piece is called
“Entrance to Birkenau,”
and it shows a snowy train
track running through an
opening in a dark building
and into a vast darkness
beyond. It’s enough to send
a chill down your spine.

“Entrance to Birkenau,” of
course, refers to the most
infamous Nazi concentration
camp there was: Auschwitz-
Birkenau, which was actually
“a complex of over 40
concentration and extermi-
The display at Cheltenham High School
nation camps” where almost
featuring “Entrance to Birkenau”
1 million Jews went to die,
Recent estimates by the Holocaust
according to its Wikipedia page. But this
sculpture is not designed to teach you Survivors’ Rights Authority and the
those historical facts. Instead, it’s built Anti-Defamation League put the number
to give you something perhaps more of remaining survivors at less than
200,000 between the United States
valuable: an impression.

Such is the power of high-quality and Israel. Marlowe said the Holocaust
art. That’s why the Elkins Park-based Awareness Museum and Education
Holocaust Awareness Museum and Center, or HAMEC, used to communi-
Education Center is displaying this sculp- cate with 40 survivors. Today, that group
ture at nearby Cheltenham High School. is down to five.

It is getting harder to organize visits by
In Cheltenham’s main lobby, students
can walk up to “Entrance to Birkenau” survivors to local schools, so Holocaust
and see it inside a glass case along- education needs to take new forms. This
side other Holocaust items. Teachers effort becomes even more important in
will hopefully bring students there an era of rising antisemitism. The ADL
during class periods starting next year, recorded more antisemitic incidents in
according to Lise Marlowe, the program the U.S. in 2022, 3,697, than in any year
and outreach director for the museum. since it started keeping track in 1979.

Marlowe coordinated the placement of This spring, a local township that doesn’t
the piece with Cheltenham Township even have a synagogue or Jewish
School District officials. She hopes to Community Center, Tredyffrin, Chester
organize similar displays at other schools. County, has seen swastikas pop up at
The Abington School District and the a shopping center, middle school and
Downingtown Area School District are neighborhood, among other locations.

among local districts that have relation-
Earlier this year, Gratz College and
ships with the museum, according to Theatre Ariel organized performances of a
Marlowe. play about 10 Holocaust survivors, called
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“Survivors,” at local schools including in
Springfield Township. Christina Photiades,
an English teacher at Springfield Middle
School, told the Jewish Exponent in April
that she hoped her students walked away
from the show with “a greater sense
of empathy for all of the survivors and
victims of the Holocaust.”
A piece of art can have the same
impact, according to Marlowe, who is
also an elementary school teacher in the
Cheltenham district.

“The goal is, since it’s a three-dimen-
sional piece especially, that the kids
kind of walk into history,” she said. “They
feel like they’re walking through the
footsteps of these survivors.”
“Entrance to Birkenau” was created
by the late Frank Root, a Philadelphia-
based artist who was not Jewish. His
wife, Ruth Joray, was, and, at the funeral
of her mother, Sadie Silverman, he had
a vision. While standing in a cemetery,
Root saw a group of people who were
bound together ascending. It looked
like they had risen from a concentration
camp, according to Joray.

After his vision, the artist went to Gratz,
looked up images of the Holocaust and
became “engrossed,” his wife recalled.

He spent the next two decades on about
40 sculptures about the Holocaust, his
“Journey into Darkness” series. Joray
said the pieces were displayed between
30 and 40 times, and when survivors
saw them, they would often approach
Root and ask, “How did you know?”
Root died in 2015, and his wife still had
the sculptures. She wanted to donate his
work so those feelings would live on. But
none of the institutions that showcased
the artist’s pieces had room for a collec-
tion. But then Joray read an article in
The Philadelphia Inquirer about Marlowe
teaching the Holocaust to her elemen-
tary school students.

She reached out to the HAMEC volun-
teer, who came to her house. Joray
invited her into the basement. When they
got downstairs, Marlowe saw the pieces
and “started crying,” Joray recalled.

HAMEC has 16 other Root sculptures.

They are the pieces that Marlowe plans
to distribute to local schools. She hopes
to get them up by September for the
start of the new school year.

“To keep it not just for a week in their
minds, but to keep it in their minds
hopefully on a daily basis,” Marlowe said
of students. ■
jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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