Belgian King opens new Holocaust museum on former Auschwitz deportation site

by: EJP Updated: 27/Nov/2012 10:42

BRUSSELS (EJP/AFP) --- King Albert II of Belgium on Monday inaugurated the Museum of the Holocaust and Human Rights opposite the “Dossin Barracks”, in Mechelen, the site from which more than 25,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz death camp, along with 352 gypsies between 1942-1944.

Belgijski kralj Albert II je u ponedjeljak inagurirao novi "Muzej Holokausta i ljudskih prava"  na mjestu koje se nalazi nasuprot   "Dossin Barrack" u Mechelenu,  odakle je između 1942 i 1944  više od 25.000 Židova deportirano u logor smrti Auschwitz, zajedno sa 352 Roma. 

Muzej se zove “Dossin Barracks Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre for the Holocaust and Human Rights”,  i nalazi se u centru Mechelena oko 30  kilometara sjeverno Brusselsa i biti će otvoren za publiku 1.prosinca.

To je zgrada, masivna , sa prozorima u muralu i  za njenu konstrukciju su upotrebljene  25.852 cigle, što predstavlja broj Židova i Roma koji su poslani u smrt u Asuchwitz,  iz baraka koje su bile samo nekoliko metara od mjesta gdje se nalazi muzej.

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Chosen deportees generally stayed two or three months in the barracks before being transferred to the German concentration camp in cattle wagons. Only 5% of Jews and gypsies transferred in the 28 separate deportations survived the end of the war, returning home in 1945.

In September the Belgian Prime Minster Elio Di Rupo offered his apologies on behalf of Belgium for the role of its wartime administration in the deportation of its Jewish community. “Today, Flanders looks its wartime past in the face,” asserted the museum’s curator, Professor Herman Van Goethem, revealing that “witnesses” of Belgium’s Nazi collaboration were less and less numerous in the Dutch-Belgian region.

Only the fourth floor of the museum, home to temporary exhibitions has access to natural daylight, with the three lower floors constituting a sort of opaque mausoleum...  “The total volume corresponds to that of the wagons used for the 28 deportations,” explained the architect.

The ground floor, entitled “mass”, shows how the crowds were carried away with anti-Semitic sentiment, fear and rejection of others, and finally acceptance of the reversal of the most fundamental freedoms..

The second floor evokes “the anguish” of the occupation, through thousands of photos, witness statements and police reports.

The best part is provided by modern technology, in particular touch screens, which allow visitors to explore the moving school records of a Jewish child, as well as hearing the testimony of a man who escaped a Nazi raid.

On the third and only remaining level, the visitor is confronted by “death”, conveyed by photos of women and children en route to Nazi gas chambers and portraits of murdered....