“Americans and the Holocaust,” opening Nov. 5 in Fresno for its only stop in Northern California, is based on an exhibit of the same name at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C.
Six million buttons of many colors and shapes and sizes buttons made of metal, wood, cloth, plastic, pearl and shell, plain buttons and buttons with patterns, textured buttons and flat buttons soon will serve as a memorial in a garden setting at Chabad of Bakersfield to honor the lives of every Jewish woman, man and child killed in the Holocaust.
“We are focused on affirming the lives of every one of them,” said Rabbi Shmuel Schlanger, co-director with his wife, Esther, of Chabad of Bakersfield. “We are going to build this memorial to encourage people of all backgrounds to come here and to reflect on how they could counteract evil deeds of the past by replacing them with deeds of kindness, to make the future and the world more beautiful.”