By Kathianne Boniello
It is a place where memory, history and a mission converge.
Despite the horrors of the subject, there is something powerful about the Holocaust Resource Center and Archives that resonates in its plain basement headquarters at Queensborough Community College.
At first it is hard to see the delicate balance achieved at the center by Director Dr. William Shulman, and his loyal staff of one, Assistant Director Sarah Roberts.
Amid hundreds of books, videos, historical records, academic papers and exhibits on the Holocaust a small corps of volunteers — most of whom are Holocaust survivors — sift through photographs and other materials documenting the worst genocide in human history. They are cataloging the events of their lives.
The synergy of personal recollection, the human need to chronicle and catalogue life and the dedication and expertise of Shulman and his team are nearly overshadowed by the sight of the place: a nonprofit practically bursting from its small home with materials and events.
The commitment and drive of Shulman, a history professor with no personal connection to the Holocaust who began studying the subject in 1976 and founded the center 18 years ago, drive the heart of the facility.
“The Holocaust is a watershed event in the 20th century and it has an impact on everything that has happened since,” said Shulman, a Hollis resident. “It’s important that facilities such as this are in existence to provide the information and the education, and act as repositories for that series of events.”
During World War II more than 6 million Jews were killed in Europe between 1933 and 1945 by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and members of his extremist Nazi regime. The genocide, which took place primarily in concentration camps throughout Europe, began with the complete social and cultural segregation of Jewish people in Germany and throughout Europe.
The Holocaust center, however, is not only a place for the community to check out books, watch videos or peruse documents and photos about the Holocaust, free of charge. It has living archives, too.
Holocaust survivor Hanne Liebmann, 77, a Baysider, cannot quite remember how she got involved with the Holocaust center, as it is commonly called.
Liebmann was deported from her native Karlsruag, Germany in October 1940 at age 16 with her family and survived nearly a year in a concentration camp before being transferred by the Nazis to a French village, Le Chambon. There the villagers helped protect persecuted Jews such as Liebmann, who eventually escaped to Switzerland and later America.
The 27-year Bayside resident, who speaks about her experiences in schools throughout Queens and Nassau County, spends each Thursday at the center.
“We feel we have a job to do,” Liebmann said of the Holocaust survivors who volunteer at the center. “We have to inform the younger generation so that they know what happened, or what can happen when you lose democracy.”
Another Thursday volunteer, Ellen Alexander, 73, has lived in Queens for 51 years but vividly remembers her departure from Berlin in 1939 at age 10.
Alexander and her sister were two of more than 10,000 put on the Kindertransport by their parents — a service begun in 1938 in which children traveled by themselves to Great Britain, where they were often cared for by foster families. Alexander and her sister spent nearly 10 years in England before being reunited with their mother and eventually coming to America.
The Fresh Meadows resident has a simple reason for volunteering at the Holocaust center since 1993.
“I needed to do something,” she said.
Liebmann and Alexander are just two of about a half dozen volunteers who have served the center with both personal experience and hard work.
Several historical records and analyses of the World War II genocide are kept at the center, which functions as a public library and publishes materials on the Holocaust for teachers and schools across the nation. Records kept there include lists of Holocaust victims made by the German government, maps, photographs and academic studies.
One of the historical archives features an indexed collection of articles on the Holocaust written in The New York Times between 1923 and 1948, created by Baysider and Holocaust survivor Lee Potasinski.
Potasinski, one of the handful of volunteers who work at the center, spent years making the collection in large black binders and then indexing the work, said Shulman. The only other replica of Potasinski’s work resides at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., Shulman said
While the center and its resources sometimes struggle to find an audience among the college students and Bayside residents surrounding it, Shulman, Roberts and the volunteers never waver in their mission.
For Roberts, who has worked at the center for six years, the goal is clear.
“When a child comes in and says, ‘I’ve never heard of the Holocaust’ …,” she said, her voice trailing off, “it’s important for them to know, so as not to have it happen again.”
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
