NE HIST SOCIETY 1500 R ST LINCOLN HE 6850B-1651
Vol.LXXV
No. 45
Omaha, NE
8 Av, 5758
July 31, 1998
See story on page 8
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by Carol Katzman
Little did Beth Seldin-"Dotan know that when she moved to Israel four years ago, she'd eventually find work at 6ne of Omaha's Partnership 2000 (P2K) sites - the" Ghetto Fighter's Museum. S~ The daughter of Sarah and Ted Seldin, Beth, her husband, Amr.oii, and their children, Liatte and Yonaton, made aliyah to Kibbuti Ayelet Hashachar, Located in the Upper Galilee, "the kibbutz is where Amnon grew up and where'liis parents still live Just a few miles, away, in. the Western Galilee, (the P2K region to which Omaha is paired) is the Ghetto Fighter's Museum, the first Holocaust museum in the world and created by survivors. Dotan holds, a master's degree in Jewish education from the Hebrew Union College-Institute of Religion in Eos Angeles. She spent the fyrst few years adjustr ing to life in Israel, Wofldng in informal education at the kibbutz and brushing up on her Hebrew skills. She participated in a Museum Studies program at Haifa University for one year, networking with the 'museum community1. Eventually she found her way to Tali Shner, a past student of Amnon's mother and director of Yad Layeled, the children's wing of the Ghetto Fighter's Museum. Shner recently invited Dotan to become involved in an international reading project which requires bilingual instructors. Since July of 1397, Dotan has been part of the museum staff, concerned with leading three-hour tours and workshops in the newly-opened children's wing.
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The exhibits of Yad Layeled, the children's wing of the Ghetto Fighter's Museum, unfold section by section. The view shows the entrance into the ghetto. "We handle several groups a day," said Dotan, "mostly from schools. The tour is broken down into three one-hour segments' a tour of the museum, an activity or story session and a workshop. "Ifs not just a visit," she added, "Ifs on experience. It involves art, drama, writing or music. 'Magic' can happen anywhere or anytime during that three-hour period."
Dotan describes the shape of the visually stimulating"Yad Layeled a& "powerful " The exhibits are ,minimal - one shoe, instead of a pile, to denote the personaFloss of a singletcluld, something to winch . the children who visit can relate The .museum catalog describes the unique approach behind its creation and its architectural design'."It's uniqueness lies in the fact that it is primarily intended for young visitors, aged nine and up Those who planned and established the museum decided that the Child in the Holocaust exhibition should present the children's stonet from their own point of view and in their own voic es. Children, after all, with their rather vague understanding of the world around them and then limited capacity for abstraction, cannot help Kit to grasp facts when seen through their own eyes " Architect Ram Karmi designed the circular sp.ico so that the beginning of the tour is connected to the end - a concept; lie describes as "never fotget the old life, to keep it alivp in our minds while life begins anew outside the museum walls." Entering the Memorial Hall, which acts ns a gateway, the visitor is greeted by stained glass windows of pictures created by children in the Tereizenstadt concentration camp. Those pictures and letters became the basis, of the book and later, the play, / Never Saw Another Butterfly, hence the butterflies portrayed on the walls of the museum From there, a ramp extends down two-und-n-half stories through momentous events of the wor, not (Continued on page 8)