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Living On was first developed as a museum exhibition. Today
it is both a traveling exhibition and an original documentary film. The
raw materials that helped create both are available to you on this web
site.
In the Living On exhibition you will see faces of Tennesseans who
are both survivors of and witnesses to the Holocaust. The exhibition
exists because each of these courageous individuals was willing to revisit
painful memories, telling his or her story in hopes that history might
never repeat itself.
Sixty
years ago, during the last days of World War II, American, British, and
Soviet troops stumbled upon thousands of concentration camps in German-occupied
Europe. The soldiers, surrounded by starvation, disease, and death, were
stunned by what they found: tens of thousands of people were being held
against their will by Nazis (members of the National Socialist German
Workers’ Party),
who had gained control of the German government in 1933, and their European
collaborators. While some survivors of Nazi persecution went into hiding
or managed to flee, the vast majority of those targeted by the Nazis
were confined in concentration camps, forced into slave labor, and worked
nearly
to death. The survivors in the camps saw the soldiers who found them
as liberators; the liberators fought to open the camps and stayed long
enough
to start massive feeding and first aid programs. Some remained in Europe
after liberation to help bring Nazi perpetrators to justice. At long
last, the deliberate and systematic effort to kill all the Jews of Europe
and other minorities targeted for discrimination had come to an end.
Through these accounts of Holocaust survivors and liberators, we become
witnesses to an important and frightening period—a time when government
leaders persecuted and sought to kill ordinary citizens because of who
they were. Their history is a part of our collective memory; their strength
and resiliency inspire us all.
The photographs in this exhibition were taken by Robert Heller, Associate
Professor, College of Communication and Information, The University of
Tennessee. Journalist Dawn Weiss Smith conducted, recorded, and transcribed
the interviews. Documentary filmmaker Will Pedigo of Nashville Public
Television, who accompanied Heller and Smith as they traveled across
the state, produced Living On: Tennesseans Remembering the Holocaust.
Living On is a project
of the Tennessee Holocaust Commission, which is funded by an annual appropriation
from the Tennessee State Legislature and by private donations. Assistance
in the development of this documentary project was provided, as well,
by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, Inc. The
traveling exhibition was curated by Susan W. Knowles. Please visit our
website, www.tennesseeholocaustcommission.org,
for more information on this and other public outreach programs.
TENNESSEE HOLOCAUST COMMISSION
Phil Bredesen, Governor
Felicia F. Anchor, Commission Chair
Ernest G. Freudenthal, Secretary/Treasurer
Ruth K. Tanner, Executive Director
Jack A. Belz, Memphis
Sen. Tim Burchett, Knoxville
Kay Clark, Tennessee Board of Regents
Leonard Chill, Chattanooga
Gene L. Davenport, Jackson
Annette Eskind, Nashville
L. Allen Exelbierd, Memphis
Jan B. Groveman, Memphis
Lawrence P. Leibowitz, Knoxville
Robert A. Levy, The University of Tennessee
Rep. Mark Maddox, Dresden
Patty Marks, Nashville
David Patterson, Memphis
Leonid Saharovici, Memphis
Gilya G. Schmidt, Knoxville
E. Thomas Wood, Nashville
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