Romania Opens Shoah Museum
Holocaust survivors and Jewish community leaders will gather in Romania this week for the dedication of the country’s first Holocaust museum.
The two-year project to establish the museum, led by the Jewish Architectural Heritage Foundation and its Romanian sister organisation AMHN, will culminate with a formal ceremony in Şimleu Silvaniei, Transylvania, on Sunday.
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The synagogue, originally built in 1876, will become the centrepiece of the new museum.
More than 160,000 Jews from the Transylvania region were killed in the Holocaust. They were forced out of their homes into the Cehei ghetto in the summer of 1944 and later transported to Auschwitz.
Using video presentations, survivor testimonials and local artefacts the museum will focus on the Jewish life of the region before the Holocaust and the events that led to its destruction.
The project to build the museum began with a visit to the region by Brooklyn architectural designer, Adam Aaron Wapniak, two years ago. He became interested in the abandoned synagogue and made contact with Dr Alex Hecht, another New Yorker, whose parents were from the region.
In the intervening years the pair have made several trips between America and Romania to raise funds and head the restoration efforts.
Dr Hecht said: “While we have the support of several major Jewish organizations, we hope that once the greater world community sees a real museum functioning to educate an interested population, they’ll be encouraged to help us generate a greater support base.”
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