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Plans unveiled for Holocaust Museum on Tremont Street
By adamg on Tue, 06/06/2023 - 9:42am
Rendering by Schwartz/Silver Architects.
The Holocaust Legacy Foundation yesterday filed detailed plans with the BPDA for the six-story Holocaust Museum and Educational Center she hopes to build at 125 Tremont St., across from the Park Street Church downtown.
The building's most prominent feature is the decorative architectural mesh screen that wraps the facade. could have many interpretations from the passersby such as: a curtain pulled back to witness and document the atrocities of the Holocaust; fences that separated Jews within ghettos or concentration camps; and barriers torn down during liberation. The consistent metal fabric curtain is purposely drawn back at two critical moments on the facade. One, at the fifth floor where the visitor will begin their journey through the museum with a view of the State House and Freedom trail, serving as a reminder of the freedoms of living in a democratic society. The other opening is at the bay window on the fourth level, to reveal the visitors walking into an authentic railcar. The European rail system played a crucial role in the implementation of the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Problem." The passersby will see that moment in the history of the Holocaust when freedom was lost and Jews were brought to killing centers in German-occupied Poland.
Foundation CEO Jody Kipnis and her partner, Todd Ruderman, say they decided to build a permanent home for Holocaust education in 2020, after Covid-19 meant canceling the trips their Holocaust Legacy Foundation had been funding for American Jewish students to travel to Europe to learn about the Holocaust.
The plans call for the demolition of the current building on the site, which the couple bought last year for $11.5 million.
As visitors circulate through the interactive and immersive gallery spaces, they will be brought back in time to learn about the history and lessons of the Holocaust,as well as other genocides. One essential element is the Dimensions in Testimony Theater on the second floor. Partnering with the USC Shoah Foundation, the opportunity to engage with holographic Survivors allows the visitor to be an active participant in a real-time conversation with a Survivor, enabling the visitors to be agents of their own learning. In addition to the highly curated galleries, the building will also feature a temporary changing gallery space that will explore relevant current events and other genocides. To truly harness the impact of these galleries
To shepherd the project through the city approval process, the foundation hired former City Councilor Mike Ross, who in addition to his expertise in zoning and regulatory issues, is the son of Holocaust survivor Stephan Ross - who led the drive for construction of the Holocaust Memorial on Union Street.
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Comments
Of two minds
1) 5-6 years ago, I would have said...this is dumb. Boston wasn't part of the Holocaust. Yes, we may have some survivors or their families that are here now, but this was a world issue and a national issue and we have a far superior National Holocaust Memorial and Museum in DC and, hell, there's even a New England Holocaust Memorial just down the street already.
2) Then the white supremacists/Nazis/anti-Holocaust conspiracy theorists started popping out of the woodworks emboldened by Trump and modern Republicans being complete douchenozzles. And I'm like....well, maybe more education and museums is necessary after all.
So now, I'm mixed. This seems both unnecessary and necessary at the same time. It won't stop the current wave of jackbooted jackasses, but it might help make fewer of them. But then again, it's going to be a sad comparison to the museum in DC. It just starts to come off as contrived and passé when someone here or there wants to setup a local museum to some global travesty seven decades later. I imagine stumbling on a museum/memorial dedicated to the extermination of native Americans in Turkey, because someone's family two centuries ago was able to escape on a ship to the Mediterranean.
Two words:
Never forget.
We are coming up on an unfounded area in modern anti-Semitism: the very oldest surviving victims of the Shoah are not long for this world. One can only imagine the emboldening the next election cycle will create. As a matter of continued education and presentation of uncomfortable truths, I strongly support this museum's construction in Boston.
We are forgetting
We are forgetting, as those who personally remember die out. You hardly see anyone with a number tattoo on their arm any more; it used to be common. I fear greatly for the consequences.
I was recently in Germany. There, the institutional commitment to keeping the memory fresh seems stronger: many museums, even those not directly about 20th century history, have provocative questions about naziism threaded through the exhibits, and there increasing numbers of sidewalk plaques reminding us of the deported and murdered who lived nearby.
Not trying to be argumentative
but a quick google search says the Greater Boston area is home to the fourth largest Jewish community in the country
A world issue, and a national
A world issue, and a national issue, and we are part of the world. Anti-Semitism is a real problem in Massachusetts now.
From the educational viewpoint, it's a lot easier and less expensive to organize a school trip to a nearby museum than an overnight trip to Washington, D.C. Maybe someone who has been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington won't visit this one, but that's fine.
The Area
On a completely non-partisan level, perhaps a facility of this nature would help to rejuvenate that now ghastly area of drug dealers, decay, addicts, and the dangerously mentally ill. That big Suffolk building did nothing but add an unwelcoming fortresslike blankness.
?
So if the drug dealers, addicts, and the dangerously mentally ill don't "move on", will the museum guards force them away? Seems counter to what the museum appears to be trying to do in teaching tolerance as part of their mission.
You been around there lately?
People who don't have to frequent that area are awfully tolerant.
Yup
I know. I work down there and not in Roslindale.
Tolerate people, nor behaviors
Tolerance means loving people and wanting the best for them. It does not mean accepting destructive, antisocial, criminal misbehavior.
Maybe some tourist activity
Maybe some tourist activity and eyes on the street will clean up that immediate area. The sidewalk right there is a problem spot, maybe because the shed over the T escalator blocks the view from the street.
But the problems on the Common won't be affected by this.
Rejuvenate just means sweeps
I have worked downtown for years. I agree it's tough at times, and that there are visible unhoused, and/or rough-living, folks with various issues that affect how they perceive the world. It sucks for them, it sucks that there isn't a better solution. I worry "rejuvenate" just means sweep and remove to a different area. We need actionable, low-barrier, no-to-low income housing. The current system is failing everyone.
Are they making the BPDA payoff for the overhang,
and paying Suffolk for cutting off the view of the Common?