Church holocaust exhibit highlights victims’ stories
WINNIPEG, MB—A Wolseley church is the host of an exhibit that commemorates the lives of Jewish and Christian Holocaust victims.
"Names Instead of Numbers" is a traveling exhibit from Germany currently on display at Westminster United Church. The exhibit consists of 27 floor-to-ceiling banners depicting a selection of biographies. Each one tells the story of a former inmate of the Dachau Concentration Camp.
The exhibit, which was first displayed in March 2008 at the Protestant Church of Reconciliation near Dachau, seeks to put names and faces to the prisoners who suffered under the Nazis.
Robert Campbell, Westminster's lead minister, says, "The thing that is particularly important to me, and what I think is the genius of this exhibition is that by telling the stories of individual people, it helps resist what is the desire of totalitarians of all time."
"It's amazing what people who wield power can get away with if they are able to reduce people to names and types," he adds. "Displays like this help us to keep alert to these dark tendencies … and help us remain resistant to them."
The showing was made possible by a partnership of Campbell; Dr. James Christie, director of the Ridd Institute for Religion and Global Policy at the University of Winnipeg; and Belle Millo, chair of the Freeman Family Foundation Holocaust Education Centre of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada.
Millo notes that Dachau was the first concentration camp that the Nazis established. Its first victims were not Jews, but included Communists, trade unionists, homosexuals, women who advocated for abortion and Jehovah's Witnesses.
She adds that the exhibit's inter-faith content makes it unique.
"This is a wonderful opportunity to bring the Jewish and Christian community together," Millo says.
The exhibit, which is in the church's chapel (enter at 745 Westminster Ave., just west of Westminster and Maryland), is on display until Sunday, April 15.
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