The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust today opened the most comprehensive Holocaust exhibition about Auschwitz ever exhibited in North America. Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. is produced in partnership with the international exhibition firm Musealia and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland. The groundbreaking exhibition has been curated by an international team of experts led by historian Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt. It runs through January 3, 2020 in New York City.

For the first time, 74 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, a traveling exhibition dedicated to the historical significance of the camp is being presented to a U.S. audience. The exhibition’s May 8 opening marks the anniversary of VE Day or Victory in Europe Day, 1945, when the Allies celebrated Nazi Germany’s surrender of its armed forces and the end of World War II in Europe.

Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. arrives in New York City after the exhibition completed a successful run at Madrid’s Arte Canal Exhibition Centre, where it was extended two times, drew more than 600,000 visitors, and was one of the most visited exhibitions in Europe last year. The exhibition explores the dual identity of the camp as a physical location—the largest documented mass murder site in human history—and as a symbol of the borderless manifestation of hatred and human barbarity.

Featuring more than 700 original objects and 400 photographs, mainly from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, the New York presentation of the exhibition allows visitors to experience artifacts from more than 20 international museums and institutions on view for the first time in the North America, including hundreds of personal items—such as suitcases, eyeglasses, and shoes—that belonged to survivors and victims of Auschwitz. Other artifacts include: concrete posts that were part of the fence of the Auschwitz camp; part of an original barrack for prisoners from the Auschwitz III-Monowitz camp; a desk and other possessions of the first and the longest-serving Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss; a gas mask used by the SS; Picasso’s Lithograph of Prisoner; and an original German-made Model 2 freight train car used for the deportation of Jews to the ghettos and extermination camps in occupied Poland.

Museum of Jewish Heritage Board Vice Chairman George Klein visited the exhibition in Spain and recommended to his Board that they bring it to Lower Manhattan. The exhibition features artifacts and materials—never before seen in North America—on loan from more than 20 institutions and private collections around the world. In addition to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, participating institutions include Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oświęcim, the Memorial and Museum Sachsenhausen in Oranienburg, and the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide in London.

Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. traces the development of Nazi ideology and tells the transformation of Auschwitz from an ordinary Polish town known as Oświęcim to the most significant Nazi site of the Holocaust—at which ca. 1 million Jews, and tens of thousands of others, were murdered. Victims included Polish political prisoners, Sinti and Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and those the Nazis deemed “homosexual,” “disabled,” “criminal,” “inferior,” or adversarial in countless other ways. In addition, the exhibition contains artifacts that depict the world of the perpetrators—SS men who created and operated the largest of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camps.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage has incorporated into the exhibition nearly 100 rare artifacts from its collection that relay the experience of survivors and liberators who found refuge in the greater New York area. These artifacts include: Alfred Kantor’s sketchbook and portfolio that contain over 150 original paintings and drawings from Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and Schwarzheide; the trumpet that musician Louis Bannet (acclaimed as “the Dutch Louis Armstrong”) credits for saving his life while he was imprisoned in Auschwitz; visas issued by Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania often referred to as “Japan’s Oskar Schindler”; prisoner registration forms and identification cards; personal correspondence; tickets for passage on the St. Louis; and a rescued Torah scroll from the Bornplatz Synagogue in Hamburg.

Also on display from the Museum of Jewish Heritage collection will be Heinrich Himmler’s SS helmet and his annotated copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, as well as an anti-Jewish proclamation issued in 1551 by Ferdinand I that was given to Hermann Göring by German security chief Reinhard Heydrich on the occasion of Göring’s birthday. The proclamation required Jews to identify themselves with a “yellow ring” on their clothes. Heydrich noted that, 400 years later, the Nazis were completing Ferdinand’s work. These artifacts stand as evidence of a chapter of history that must never be forgotten.

“As the title of the exhibit suggests, Auschwitz is not ancient history but living memory, warning us to be vigilant, haunting us with the admonition ‘Never Again.’ It is a prod to look around the world and mark the ongoing atrocities against vulnerable people,” said Bruce C. Ratner, Chairman of the Museum’s Board of Trustees. “While we had all hoped after the Holocaust that the international community would come together to stop genocide, mass murder, and ethnic cleansing, these crimes continue. And there are more refugees today than at any time since the Second World War. So my hope for this exhibit is that it motivates all of us to make the connections between the world of the past and the world of the present, and to take a firm stand against hate, bigotry, ethnic violence, religious intolerance, and nationalist brutality of all kinds.”

Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. was conceived of by Musealia and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and curated by an international panel of experts, including world-renowned scholars Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt, Dr. Michael Berenbaum, and Paul Salmons, in an unprecedented collaboration with historians and curators at the Research Center at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, led by Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz.

“Auschwitz and the Shoah are not just another single, dramatic event in the linear history of humanity. It is a critical point in the history of Europe, and perhaps the world,” said Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. “While commemorating the victims of Auschwitz we should also feel moral discomfort. Antisemitic, hateful, xenophobic ideologies that in the past led to the human catastrophe of Auschwitz, seem not to be erased from our lives today. They still poison people’s minds and influence our contemporary attitudes. That is why studying the Holocaust shouldn’t be limited to history classes. It must become part of curricula of political and civic education, ethics, media, and religious studies. This exhibition is one of the tools we can use,” he explained.

“Seventy-three years ago, after the world saw the haunting pictures from Auschwitz, no one in their right mind wanted to be associated with Nazis. But today, 73 years and three generations later, people have forgotten, or they never knew,” said Ron Lauder, Founder and Chairman of the The Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation Committee and President of the World Jewish Congress. “This exhibit reminds them, in the starkest ways, where anti-Semitism can ultimately lead and the world should never go there again. The title of this exhibit is so appropriate because this was not so long ago, and not so far away.”

“Auschwitz did not start with the gas chambers. Hatred does not happen overnight: it builds up slowly among people. It does so with words and thoughts, with small everyday acts, with prejudices,” said Luis Ferreiro, Director of Musealia and the exhibition project. “When we had the vision to create the exhibition, we conceived its narrative as an opportunity to better understand how such a place could come to exist, and as warning of where hatred can take us to.”

Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. is presented in the symbolic, hexagonally-shaped building at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. This 18,000-square-foot exhibition introduces artifacts and Holocaust survivor testimony through 20 thematic galleries. At the conclusion of this presentation, the Museum will debut its new permanent core exhibition.

Throughout its presentation of Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away., the Museum will host a series of related public, educational, and scholarly programming, featuring world-renowned experts on the Holocaust. The Museum also will expand its work with students in the tri-state area and introduce complementary educational tools for in-class and onsite use.

“All through the exhibition there are stories—stories about individuals and families, stories about communities and organizations, stories about ideologies that teach people to hate, and responses that reveal compassion and love. There are stories of victims, perpetrators, and bystanders, stories with heroes and villains—stories that all merge into an epic story of a continent marked by war and genocide,” said Dr. Robert Jan van Pelt, Chief Curator, who has published several books on the camp—including the award-winning Auschwitz, 1270 to the Present (1996) and The Case for Auschwitz (2002)—and participated as an expert witness in Deborah Lipstadt’s case against Holocaust denier David Irving.

Following the New York presentation, the exhibition is intended to tour other cities around the world. This destinations will be announced by Musealia and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in the upcoming months and years.

Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust is made possible with lead support by Bruce C. Ratner, George and Adele Klein Family Foundation, Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert, and Larry and Klara Silverstein & Family. The exhibition is presented in part with major support by The David Berg Foundation, Patti Askwith Kenner, The Oster Family Foundation, and The Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust. The New York premiere is made possible in part by Simon & Stefany Bergson with additional support from The Knapp Family Foundation.

The Gravesend section of Brooklyn was rocked to the core late on Monday evening, when an alleged drunk driver slammed his speeding vehicle into a vacant building on 496 Avenue P at the corner of East 5th Street at approximately 11:40 pm, causing the structure to collapse.

According to a CBS News report, surveillance video shows the car speeding down Avenue P before turning left onto East 5th Street and smashing into the building on the corner. The vacant storefront on the ground floor crumbled, and the apartments on the second floor collapsed. Fortunately, no one was home.

Police said the 20-year-old driver, Andrew Baird, was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the crash and fled from authorities on foot. According to the CBS News report, Baird eventually admitted to police that he was behind the wheel of a 2018 BMW, when he claims that he lost control of the vehicle. Baird was later charged with operating a motor vehicle with alcohol in his system below the age of 21 and leaving the scene of an accident.

Despite his injuries, Baird was somehow able to escape the scene of the disaster, According to a Channel 12 television report, Flatbush Safety Patrol volunteers (Shomrim) say they spotted Baird running down neighboring Kings Highway with blood on his face.

The patrol volunteers reported that they asked him what happened and he told them that he crashed. The patrol held him at the location until police arrived, where he was then taken into custody. It’s still unclear whether there may have been a passenger who also took off. Baird was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. No one else was seriously injured.

The Department of Buildings have said that the impact dislodged several supports in the building, which ultimately caused the building to collapse. Officials say the people who lived on the second floor of the building were not home at the time of the crash. The first floor was an empty commercial business, according to the Channel 12 report.

PIX 11 reported that engineers on the scene also determined that the rest of the building was similarly in danger of collapse, and that a structural party wall, between 496 Avenue P and the neighboring building at 494 Avenue P, had been compromised by the damage, DOB said.

As a result, a Full Vacate Order was issued and ordered a construction fence to be installed around the property, the department said in a statement, according to the PIX 11 report.

“I saw the house shake, because I was already sleeping, and I got up. Oh my god, I felt like something was going to happen. It sounded like an explosion,” neighbor Diana Ramirez told CBS2’s Aundrea Cline-Thomas.

Ramirez said her family had to wait outside for hours before they were given the all-clear.

“’You can’t go into your house, get what you need and come back out.’ They told police to take us up if everything was OK, and we came back out,” she said.

The FDNY said in a tweet that more than 100 of its members were at the scene to help assist. Crews are not beginning to clean up the debris.

“We tried to look before to help, but couldn’t see anybody,” another neighbor added.

“There’s always accidents on Avenue P, whether it’s over here or over there,” said Benjamin Hayon, who works nearby. “Avenue P is just always accident-prone for some reason. It doesn’t make sense, but it is.”

The Red Cross is assisting residents from the damaged building and the one next door who are not allowed to return home.

The building owners were ordered to properly shore up the party wall and install a sidewalk shed in the front of the building.

A small parking lot behind the collapsed building at 1710 East 5 Street was issued a partial vacate order due to their proximity to the collapsed building, according to the PIX 11 report.

Rumor has it that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio will be announcing his intention to be the president of the United States this week.

No, really.

A source has reportedly told the Daily News that the official announcement could come as early as Wednesday, which is also the major’s 58th birthday. A second source is said to have shared that the announcement was originally planned for last week.

de Blasio has tried to generate buzz by paying visits to first primary states like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. If the rumors are true, it would make de Blasio the 23rd Democratic candidate – no, really — to throw a hat into the ring.

The Associated Press has already reported that the mayor said he would make a final decision on whether to run “in the month of May.” His office has remained mum.

Some have questions whether the mayor could earn a spot on the state for the Democratic debates. “The debates are important, there’s a lot of other factors in how … a campaign of this importance emerges,” he said on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show.” To qualify for the 12 scheduled Democratic primary debates, The Hill said, candidates must receive at least 1 percent support in at least three separate polls recognized by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) or receive campaign contributions from at least 65,000 unique donors. The DNC has said that it will prioritize candidates who meet both thresholds if more than 20 contenders qualify for the debates.”

de Blasio was embarrassed in April when a Quinnipiac University poll showed that a whopping 76 percent of New York City residents think he should not run for president.

“De Blasio has cast himself as a progressive during his tenure as mayor, railing against income inequality, touting the benefits of the Green New Deal and feuding with New York’s centrist governor Andrew Cuomo,” The Hill noted.

“It’s unclear exactly what the potential Johnny-come-lately candidate expects to find in Iowa, given that every poll out of the state has him at 0 percent (or not even listed), while high-profile progressives like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren already occupy his hypothetical lane,” Vanity Fair recently suggested. “Moreover, it’s unclear where de Blasio is getting the idea he should enter the crowded race in the first place, considering absolutely no one seems to want him there. Of nearly three-dozen allies and advisers surveyed by Politico in March, only two said he should run, while the rest considered the idea to be, as one adviser put it, “f-ing insane.” A Monmouth poll found that, of every single Democratic candidate, both declared and undeclared, de Blasio was the only one with a net negative favorability rating.

Keith Raniere, founder of the cultlike group Nxivm, sits at the center of a trial in Brooklyn that is all but certain not to bore its jurors.

“If the questions that were asked of prospective jurors are any indication, the racketeering and sex-trafficking trial of Keith Raniere, founder of the cultlike group Nxivm, may require not only stamina from the jury, but also the ability to listen to potentially uncomfortable testimony,” noted the New York Times.

Raniere, 58, has pleaded not guilty to sex-trafficking and other charges; his attorneys reportedly are fighting what they claim are “unusual and dubious” protections that would violate his constitutional right to confront his accusers.

Before choosing a jury on Monday morning, the Paper of Record continued, “a judge in federal court in Brooklyn winnowed the pool of possible jurors with a questionnaire appeared to ask, among other things, whether they can be fair to someone with multiple sexual partners and how they feel about sexually explicit images and possibly “skin modifications (such as tattoos and branding).”

Some of what those jurors will hear was summarized recently by a web site called thecut.com. “Co-founder Nancy Salzman admitted in court that she tracked and monitored women within NXIVM. Nancy Salzman, who was the first person involved in the case to plead guilty to her single charge of racketeering conspiracy, tearfully confessed in court on March 13 that she tracked and monitored the usernames and passwords of suspected moles in the group to ensure they weren’t leaking details about the group’s inner workings. She also admitted that she ordered others to “destroy video tapes” that documented Raniere’s “teachings.”

The plot thickens even more, thecut.com points out in the same piece. “Prosecutors believe that founder Keith Raniere had sex with a 15-year-old girl, who later became his first “slave.” At a Brooklyn courthouse on March 14, Raniere — who was already facing forced labor, wire fraud conspiracy, human trafficking, and sex trafficking charges — was hit with an additional charge of child pornography. According to prosecutors, Raniere documented himself engaging in sexual conduct with a 15-year-old girl, who would go on to become his first “slave.” Prosecutors also accused Raniere of having had a sexual relationship with at least one other child, and of possessing child pornography between 2005 and 2018.”

“Authorities claimed that a doctor — who is currently being investigated by state health officials — branded the women in the “sorority” with a cautery pen without anesthesia,” noted Fox News. “Eight “Jane Does” in that case have refused to answer questions, saying through their lawyers “the branding was a voluntary free expression of personal beliefs.” In the court papers, defense lawyers have similarly claimed the alleged victims were never abused, saying the women were “independent, smart, curious adults” seeking “happiness, fulfillment and meaning.”

Hate crimes in New York City are up a disturbing 67% this year, even as overall crime is down.

Anti-Semitic incidents provided the majority of those hate crimes, according to NYPD officials.

“If you drill down on the anti-Semitic hate crimes that we are seeing, approximately 80% are the drawing of swastikas in some way, shape or fashion around New York City,” said Dermot Shea, the NYPD’s chief of detectives.

“There is no place for hate in New York City and the detectives of the Hate Crime Task Force are working diligently to eliminate these crimes and to bring perpetrators of hate to justice,” said a department spokesman.

According to NYPD numbers, year-to-date index crime is down by more than 1,900 complaints, or -6.7%, as April 2019 saw the lowest number of reported index crime of any April in the CompStat era. The city also achieved record CompStat era lows for the month of April in murder, robbery and burglary.

“New York City has seen a dramatic reduction in crime, and we continue to make history and set new records by facing the challenges together,” said Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill. “I want to thank the dedicated members of the NYPD who tackle violent crime with precision and are forging stronger bonds with the public – and everyone who plays a role in a safe city – with their problem solving and professionalism.”

“Every New Yorker deserves to feel safe in their home. While crime is at a historic low across the city, we are working to make this a reality in every zip code,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “We are doubling down on our efforts to bring these communities and police together to find new ways to fight crime and make our City safer and fairer.”

Among the highlights from this month’s crime statistics:

– A -6.1% reduction in index crime in April 2019 (6,891) compared to April 2018 (7,337).

– Reductions in every major crime category April 2019 compared to April 2018.

– A -34.6% reduction in murder in April 2019 (17) compared to April 2018 (26). Overall, now year-to-date murder is +2, or +2.3%.

– Transit crime -4.3% in April 2019 (178) compared to April 2018 (186).

– A -16.1% reduction in rape in April 2019 (141) compared to April 2018 (168). Overall, now year-to-date rape is +10, or +1.8%. NYPD understands that rape continues to be underreported. If you have been a victim of sexual assault please come forward. The NYPD’s Special Victims Division 24-hour hotline is 212-267-RAPE (7273).

Richard Brown, who for almost 30 years served as the Queens District Attorney, is dead at 86.

Brown died Saturday morning at the Meadow Ridge rehabilitation center in Redding, Conn., where he had been for the past week after a fall.

“He had recently handed over the reigns of the office to Assistant District Attorney John Ryan, but kept up with day-to-day operations, relatives said. “Until a week ago, he was calling the office multiple times a day, checking in with what was going on,” his son-in-law Bruce Foodman told the New York Daily News.

A tribute to Brown, penned by Scott E. Mollen, was posted on the New York Law Journal’s web site. It reads in part: “District Attorney Richard Brown was a superb and beloved family patriarch, public servant, role model and a great friend to many people. I was privileged to be one of those friends.

“He was an outstanding jurist who, together with his colleagues, strove to advance the work and reputation of the Appellate Division, Second Department, when my father was its presiding justice. In addition to hearing cases, he enthusiastically embraced opportunities to improve the administration of justice by sharing the expertise he had acquired while serving as counsel to Governor Hugh Carey. In such capacity, he had interfaced with many administrative agencies and the legislature.”

Brown was born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens, New York. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Hobart College in 1953, graduated from New York University School of Law in June 1956 and was admitted to the Bar by the Appellate Division, Second Department in October 1956.

Prior to becoming a member of the judiciary in September 1973, Judge Brown spent nine years serving in various important legal positions on behalf of the leadership of the New York State Senate and Assembly and at the 1967 New York State Constitutional Convention and four years as New York City’s Legislative Representative in Albany where he managed the City’s Albany office and supervised its legislative program.

After serving as a Judge of the Criminal Court for less than two years, Judge Brown was appointed as Supervising Judge of the Brooklyn Criminal Court and assumed full administrative responsibility for the operation of that court and supervision of all judicial and non-judicial personnel. In January 1976, Judge Brown was designated as an Acting Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.

In November 1977, Judge Brown was elected a Justice of the Supreme Court in Queens County. At the end of the following year he returned to Albany as Counsel to Governor Hugh L. Carey where he served as the Governor’s chief legal advisor. On March 3, 1981, Judge Brown returned to the Supreme Court and the following year was designated by Governor Carey as an Associate Justice of the Appellate Division, Second Department. He was thereafter twice re-designated as a member of the Appellate Division by Governor Mario M. Cuomo.