By Nathan Duke
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D−N.Y.) has secured $33,000 for Queensborough Community College that will allow the Bayside school to complete construction on its new Holocaust resource center, the center’s executive director said.
Queensborough’s Harriet & Kenneth Kupferberg Resource Center and Archives will open in its new building in September, Executive Director Arthur Flug said. The new building will include a library, classrooms, an interactive exhibit and photo and art galleries.
Schumer has obtained a whopping $750 million for the state in the recently approved $410 billion spending bill for fiscal year 2009. The senator will hand over $33,000 to Queensborough for the completion of the new Holocaust center, Flug said.
“We’re in the process of completing construction on the center,” Flug said. “The main focus will be an exhibit that will honor people living in Queens who were victims of the Holocaust or had relatives that died during the Holocaust. We’re talking to people who live in Floral Park, Douglaston, Bayside and Jamaica and including them in the exhibit.”
Flug said the exhibit will feature interactive kiosks, at which visitors will learn about the Holocaust through voices of victims and documentation.
“We don’t want to have a house of horrors, but to show people what happened and motivate them,” he said. “And we wanted to create an exhibit that was more than just names, dates and places.
The exhibit will also compare legal options available for modern−day victims of hate crimes and Jews living during the Holocaust, he said.
“If you are a victim of discrimination now, you can go to the police, but not during the Holocaust,” he said. “Jews had no options.”
The total cost of the new Holocaust center is $400,000, Flug said. Schumer’s allocated money will put the project slightly over the top for funding, he said.
The Holocaust center, which was founded at the college more than 20 years ago, is named after Malba philanthropist Harriet Kupferberg, who donated to Queensborough.
Reach reporter Nathan Duke by e−mail at nduke@timesledger.com or by phone at 718−229−0300, Ext. 156.
