arts & culture | by bill mcdonald

NEW AT SCIENCE CITY: The Holocaust Through the Eyes of a Child

Remember the Children: Daniel's Story - the family-oriented, award-winning exhibit of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - has come to Kansas City. Sponsored by Bank of America, it debuted at Science City on Friday, October 20th and will run through Sunday, March 18th of next year. This is its fifth stop in its national tour. Conceived and developed by experts in the fields of history, education, museum science and child psychiatry, the show has been produced expressly for children eight and over as well as their parents and teachers. Its goal is to impart an understanding of the Holocaust. It employs an approximately fifteen-minute, interactive, multi-media "walk-through" technique toward explaining how and why such a catastrophe could occur in a (then) "modern," western culture.

The exhibit comes to life through the perspective and experiences of "Daniel," a fictional, composite character drawn from the diaries and/or oral histories of the children who survived the Holocaust and the estimated 1.5 million who didn't. The exhibit's Daniel "was" a six-year-old German/Jewish kid at the time Hitler came to power in 1933. The exhibit begins with a five-minute film retrospective of the 1933-1945 period in Nazi Germany narrated by the now-adult Daniel. Thus, young visitors are simultaneously forewarned of what's to follow, but reassured at the outset by the obvious fact that he has survived.

A succession of interactive dioramas which capture the milestones in the twelve-year, ever-worsening fortunes of Daniel and his family follows - beginning with a re-creation of their then-happy home. From that point, it's on to the Lodz ghetto in Poland, Auchwitz and Daniel's life after liberation in 1945.

The genius and general effectiveness of this exhibition as an educational tool resides in the method through which it presents the very gradual but inexorable way in which the catastrophe escalated from casual ethnic hazing and prejudice in the early 30's to overtly-condoned social ostracism later in that decade, to a thoroughly institutionalized, state-sponsored policy of genocide per 1942's "Final Solution" - the flash-point at which industrialized extermination of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and "troublesome intellectuals" actually began.

Sci-City visitors will also be able to take in an ancillary exhibit, Portrait 2000 - a gallery of 50 black-and-white photographs accompanied by narratives scripted by Greater Kansas City Holocaust survivors who have rebuilt their lives here. It, in turn, has been sponsored by The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education.

Additionally, a goodly number of sympathetic local organizations have mobilized their resources to support this event throughout its run here with an extensive schedule of special events. Call Laura Davis, Public Relations Manager for Sci-City for details 816.460.2047 or The Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City, at 913.327.8000 for details.

This is a rare and truly extraordinary "must-see/must-do" family and/or school field trip opportunity for which there exists a five-month planning window. (Translation: If you fail to manage a visit within so generous a time-frame, it will not only constitute a personal loss for you - but your younger charges.)

The more adult, broader view of this exhibit, however, is that it's not "just" about the Jewish persecution of WWII - but genocide.

During the last couple of decades, adults have benefited mightily from insights into the Holocaust phenomenon through TV mini-series like The Winds of War and cinematic coups like Schindler's List and Life is Beautiful. The more bookishly-oriented have also benefited from the works of authors like Fromm, Peck, Frankel and Wiesel, in their respective examinations of human evil.

Unfortunately, however - and notwithstanding their good work, the slaughters continue. Consider this, particularly in light of suggestions that the Holocaust constituted a mere aberration in human history: scholars of genocide estimate that some 15 to 20 million human

beings have perished in genocidally-inspired disasters since 1945! Cambodia. Rwanda. East Timor. Somalia. China.

When humanity moves beyond this phase, perhaps a child will lead the way.