As this year comes to an end, we wish to share with you, our devoted supporters, the good news that despite all the serious challenges that the pandemic posed for us, 2021 turned out to be one of the most exciting years ever in HDEC’s 41 years of existence! What transpired during the past couple of months was extraordinary and history-making.
We were overjoyed when the Jim Moran Foundation awarded HDEC an incredible donation of $1.25 million, allocated to create a partnership between HDEC and Steven Spielberg’s USC Shoah Foundation (USCSF) to Preserve the Legacy in perpetuity, of our more than 2,300+ eyewitness testimonies.
Through this exciting and mutually beneficial partnership, USCSF will add HDEC’s 2,300+ testimonies into their expansive archive of more than 55,000 testimonies. They will digitize, catalogue, index, preserve, and globally distribute the HDEC Collection, making it accessible through USCSF’s growing network of more than 170 locations worldwide and over 100,000 registered educators.
The HDEC Collection will become a full access site, meaning that all of USCSF’s 55,000 testimonies including the HDEC Collection, will be available and accessible at the Holocaust Documentation & Education Center’s Dania Beach facility — providing students, teachers, researchers, scholars, visitors, and the HDEC staff and volunteers unfettered access!
Adding to the exciting benefits of the partnership — one that will become a major attraction for our Museum — HDEC was able to contract with USCSF to produce two “Dimensions in Testimony” (DiT). DiT is an interactive biography developed by USCSF. This technology was featured on a CBS 60 Minutes program, which many of you have seen, giving us a unique glimpse into this innovative technology that enables the current and future generations the opportunity to ask questions of a Holocaust Survivor and hear their responses in a real-time, lifelike conversation.
Another terrific partnership was forged this month with the University of South Florida’s Institute for Digital Exploration. Two of their students spent almost a week with us creating a 3D Digital imaging sample of approximately 50 of the artifacts from our Collections. As a result, HDEC and USF will be entering into a partnership so that our 10,000 documents, artifacts, and photographs will be “virtualized” and made available online worldwide.
So in this year of challenges and opportunities, HDEC has become stronger and more visible than ever before. We have garnered new partnerships, prospects and friends. We have scheduled more Classroom Zooms with Survivors than last year. We have captivated interested visitors locally and globally with our Museum facility, our Collections, our authenticated Railcar, and our U.S. Army Sherman Tank, as well as with the following numerous and varied programs that were offered by HDEC in 2021.
PLEASE NOTE: ALL THE FOLLOWING TEXTS IN BLUE THAT ARE UNDERLINED ARE LINKS THAT WE INVITE YOU TO CLICK ON FOR MORE INFORMATION!
This upcoming January, the HDEC will be featuring the following three Traveling Exhibitions simultaneously:
Israel Then & Now on loan from the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, will be on view until June 15, 2022. A preview of the exhibition can be viewed here.
A Legacy to Remember by local artist Mark L. Cohen, who created an exceptional series of paintings about the inhumanity of the Holocaust. This exhibition will be on view until July 30, 2022.
Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race produced by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, examines how from 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany carried out a campaign to “cleanse” German society of people viewed as biological threats to the nation’s “health.” This Exhibition will be on view from January 15, 2022 through June 30, 2022.
If you wish to schedule a tour, please call 954-929-5690, ext. 304, or email Ashley Angelucci. All health and safety guidelines per CDC and Broward County are in place and must be observed, such as masks and social distancing.
Student Awareness Days our renowned prejudice-reduction, anti-bullying programs, are scheduled to take place in person January 27, 2022 for Broward County High School Students, and on February 23, 2022 for Dade County High School Students.
Speakers Bureau is at full force offering Zoom presentations with Survivors. If you would like to arrange for a Zoom presentation, please contact Ashley Angelucci.
This year’s theme for the Jean and Jules Kluger Visual Arts and Writing Contest and “A Simple Act of Kindness” Contest: is “What is the most important lesson you have learned from the Holocaust and why?” The contest submission deadline is May 5, 2022. All submissions must be electronic. Winners will be announced in June 2022.
Please visit our website for a listing of all online programs, a list of those still available can be found here.
Once all restrictions for COVID-19 are lifted, the Documentation Department will continue to interview Survivors, Liberators, and other eyewitnesses. If you are interested, please contact Sara Acevedo.
The Center has all COVID-19 protocols in place. If you are interested in volunteering to translate, audit/edit, foreign/edit, or proofread transcripts, please contact Sara Acevedo.
If you wish to donate Holocaust artifacts, memorabilia, or photographs. please contact Sara Acevedo.
“Life & Legacy”: The HDEC participates in the Harold Grinspoon Foundation/Jewish Federation of Broward County special endowment program, so that our work can continue in perpetuity. If you would like to learn more about becoming a Life and Legacy member, please click here.
The Holocaust Documentation & Education Center is blessed to have you as part of our family and we are enormously grateful to you for your encouragement, generosity, and commitment over all these years.
We hope you are as thrilled as we are with HDEC’s progress and will choose to make a Year End Gift, to keep this incredible momentum going! Working together, HDEC and the Museum will most assuredly reach a level of excellence and relevance that our Founders dreamed of, and our beloved Survivors deserve.
If you are interested in a Naming Opportunity or more information about the HDEC Museum’s Capital Campaign, please contact Rositta E. Kenigsberg
For your convenience, your donation can be made through:
- Our website
- PayPal
- Mailed to the Holocaust Documentation & Education Center at 303 N. Federal Highway, Dania Beach, FL 33004
- Or you may email Karen Valecillos or call her at (954) 929-5690, extension 306.
All donations are tremendously appreciated.
We thank you so much again.
We wish to take this opportunity to extend our best wishes to you and your family for a safe and healthy Holiday Season, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!
