Rear Admiral Herman A. Shelanski Visits Holocaust Documentation and Education Center

Online, May 10, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Last month, Rear Admiral Herman A. Shelanski, Commander, Carrier Strike Group 10 chose to visit the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center located at 2031 Harrison Street in Hollywood in honor of this year's Fleet Week, which happens to coincide with Yom Hashoah, Annual Days of Holocaust Remembrance. The visit was in partnership with the Broward Sheriff's Office and pays tribute to all who protect and serve the universal ideals of peace, equality, and freedom.

Thus, this visit by Rear Admiral Shelanski to the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center was a rare and wonderful opportunity to join members of the military and law enforcement with those who are committed to Holocaust remembrance and education. At this event, all came together to commemorate NEVER AGAIN and the lessons of the Holocaust as we all pledge to stop the hatred and bigotry.

As Rositta E. Kenigsberg, President of the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center states, "This is a time where we once again have the opportunity to stress and teach that promises of NEVER AGAIN are empty and meaningless if we remain silent and indifferent in the face of racism, hatred, violence, and bullying."

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About the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center:
The Holocaust Documentation and Education Center in Hollywood has been in existence for over three decades as a non-denominational, non-profit institution. The Center's mission is to preserve, protect, and perpetuate the authentic memory of the Holocaust by creating a permanent and irrefutable record of the eyewitness testimonies of Survivors, Liberators, and Rescuers. This world renowned Oral History Library Collection is the largest, self-produced of its kind with over 2,400 interviews and is available and accessible for scholarly and educational purposes. Spielberg's Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Raoul Wallenberg Project, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the United Nations, and the Florida Cuban Exiles Oral History Project have all sought the Center's expertise in the development of their oral history projects.

In 1994, the Center spearheaded and authored the legislation which resulted in mandating Holocaust education for all Florida students from K - 20. The Center's documentation and educational efforts are focused on today's students and teachers by sensitizing them to the importance and significance of standing up and speaking out and not being a by-stander or a perpetrator. This is accomplished through a variety of programs and efforts such as Student Awareness prejudice reduction days, an annual Teachers' Institute on Holocaust Education, a Speakers' Bureau that addresses 15,000 individuals per year, a Visual Arts and Writing Contest, a Meet the Author and International Series. A reference and research library has just opened with over 6,000 volumes of books as well as films and DVDs on various subjects of the Holocaust.

Last year, one of our 13 year old students, David Broide, took on a challenging initiative to raise over a million and a half pennies in memory of the innocent children murdered during the Holocaust. This extraordinary endeavor has been so successful that now David is raising six million pennies to remember the six million.

The Center has acquired thousands of photographs, documents, artifacts, and a rail car from Poland, one of nine in the world. All of these will tell the story along with the Oral History Library Collection in the Center's soon to be first South Florida Holocaust Museum, which is currently under construction. This museum will be the first in North America to tell the story in English and Spanish and will be appropriate for students ages 11 and up.

The museum's capital campaign of over $26 million is on its way and anyone interested in any of the meaningful naming opportunities; please contact Rositta E. Kenigsberg at 954-929-5690.