On a Sunday morning, a crane lowered a rusty remnant of the Holocaust onto tracks outside Manhattan’s Museum of Jewish Heritage — a vintage German train car like those used to transport men, women and children to Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps.

The windowless boxcar is among 700 Holocaust artifacts, most never before seen in the United States, which are being prepared for one of the largest exhibits ever on Auschwitz — a once ordinary Polish town called Oswiecim that the Nazis occupied and transformed into a human monstrosity.

The New York exhibit opens May 8, the day in 1945 when Germany surrendered and the camps were liberated.

German-made freight wagons like the one in the exhibit were used to deport people from their homes all around Europe. About 1 million Jews and nearly 100,000 others were gassed, shot, hanged or starved in Auschwitz out of a total of 6 million who perished in the Holocaust.

That fate awaited them after a long ride on the kind of train car that’s the centerpiece of the New York exhibit.

“There were 80 people squeezed into one wooden car, with no facilities, just a pail to urinate,” remembers Ray Kaner, a 92-year-old woman who still works as a Manhattan dental office manager. “You couldn’t lie down, so you had to sleep sitting, and it smelled.”

She and her sister had been forced to board the train in August 1944 in occupied Poland, after their parents died in the Lodz ghetto where Jews were held captive.

The Germans promised the sisters a better new life.

“We believed them, and we schlepped everything we could carry,” she said. “We still had great hope.”

Once in Auschwitz, “they took away whatever we carried,” and prisoners were beaten, stripped naked and heads shaved bald.

Titled “Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away,” the upcoming exhibit will transport visitors into the grisly faceoff between perpetrators and victims.

On display will be concrete posts from an Auschwitz fence covered in barbed and electrified wires; a gas mask used by the SS; a desk belonging to Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss; and a dagger and helmet used by Heinrich Himmler, the chief architect of Hitler’s “final solution.”

The collection of prisoners’ personal items includes a comb improvised from scrap metal; a trumpet one survivor used to save his life by entertaining his captors; and tickets for passage on the St. Louis, a ship of refugees whom the United States refused to accept, sending them back to Europe where some were killed by the Nazis.

The materials are on loan from about 20 institutions worldwide, plus private collections, curated by Robert Jan van Pelt, a leading Auschwitz authority, and other experts in conjunction with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland and Musealia, a Spanish company that organizes traveling shows.

The New York one will run through Jan. 3.

The eight-decade-old box car brought to New York on a cargo ship came from a German auction, in terrible condition. Van Pelt’s team bought it and restored it.

“The dark, smelly car represents that moment of transition from the world of the living that people understood and trusted to the radically alien world of the camps where the doors opened and families were separated forever,” said van Pelt, whose relatives in Amsterdam lived down the street from Anne Frank’s family.

“The Nazis wanted to wipe out every last Jew in the world,” and at the end of a train trip, “this is where the last goodbyes were said.”

The exhibit items all belonged to somebody — most now gone, either because they were murdered in camps or survived and have since died. Some people who inherited artifacts came forward with stories attached to them.

Thousands of survivors live in New York City, among the last who can offer personal testimony.

And that’s why the exhibit is important, said real estate developer Bruce Ratner, the 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,” said Ratner. “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.”
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U.S. donors and Cuban builders have completed one of the longest-running joint projects between the two countries at a low point in bilateral relations.

Officials from the Boston-based Finca Vigia Foundation and Cuba’s National Cultural Heritage Council cut the ribbon Saturday evening on a state-of-the-art, $1.2 million conservation center on the grounds of Ernest Hemingway’s stately home on a hill overlooking Havana.

 

The center, which has been under construction since 2016, contains modern technology for cleaning and preserving a multitude of artifacts from the home where Hemingway lived in the 1940s and 1950s.

 

When he died in 1961, the author left approximately 5,000 photos, 10,000 letters and perhaps thousands of margin notes in roughly 9,000 books at the property.

 

“The laboratory we’re inaugurating today is the only one in Cuba with this capacity and it will allow us to contribute to safeguarding the legacy of Ernest Hemingway in Cuba,” said Grisell Fraga, director of the Ernest Hemingway Museum.

U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, spoke at the ceremony and called it a sign of the potential for U.S.-Cuban cooperation despite rising tensions between the Communist government and the Trump administration.

 

McGovern, who met with President Miguel Diaz-Canel and other Cuban officials during his visit, said that despite tensions over Venezuela, a Cuban ally, he still believed respectful dialogue was the most productive way of dealing with Cuba’s government.

 

The Trump administration has said it is trying to get rid of socialism in Latin America.

 

 
…

The streets around The Stonewall Inn are quiet now.

But 50 years ago in June 1969, this popular gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village was the site of violent confrontation when an unprovoked police raid triggered widespread outrage, resulting in several days of riots and demonstrations.

Many believe the uprising was the catalyst for the modern gay rights movement.

Now, a groundbreaking new exhibit titled “Rise Up: Stonewall and the LGBTQ Rights Movement” at the Newseum in Washington explores that tumultuous period in American history.

Exhibit writer Christy Wallover says the numerous displays focus on the courageous efforts of everyday Americans.

“This big movement was spurred on by people who wanted to make a change, whether that’s fighting for the right to work and serve, whether that’s parading in the streets and celebrating who you are, or whether that’s winning the right to marry.”​

WATCH: New Exhibit Commemorates 50 Years of Gay Rights Movement

​Marriage equality

Jim Obergefell was one of those people. He fought for marriage equality in the state of Ohio for him and his longtime partner, John Arthur.

They had been together for 18 years when Arthur was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and within two years was in at-home hospice care.

“Because we lived in Ohio, we were not able to get married,” Obergefell explained. So, the two chartered a medical jet and flew to Baltimore, Maryland, where same-sex marriage had become legal Jan.1, 2013.

They were married that year inside the airplane on the tarmac at Baltimore Washington International Airport by Arthur’s aunt Paulette Roberts.

Arthur died a few months later.

But Ohio did not recognize their marriage. Upon Arthur’s death, Obergefell could not be listed as Arthur’s surviving spouse. Obergefell sued the state.

The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Obergefell won. On June 26, 2015, marriage equality became the law of the land.

​Symbolic artifacts

Obergefell loaned some of his most prized possessions to the Newseum to illustrate his story: the couple’s wedding rings that he had fused together after Arthur’s death; the jacket Obergefell wore when they married; and the bowtie he wore when the Supreme Court decision was announced.

Fighting back tears, Obergefell explained why he did it.

“Because it’s my marriage. It’s the love of my life. It’s the man I was willing to do anything for and to fight all the way to the Supreme Court to defend, and to protect, and to live up to my promises to him.”

Other items featured in the exhibit represent trailblazers such as Frank Kameny, who many consider the father of the LGBTQ rights movement.

His portable typewriter — on view in a display case — was used to create memos, pamphlets, “and everything he used to petition and protest the government,” Wallover explained.

There are also items from several U.S. politicians.

A red suit from Tammy Baldwin, who in 1998 became the first openly gay woman elected to Congress, and artifacts from Congressman Barney Frank, who revealed he was gay in an interview with The Boston Globe in 1987 after having served for three terms.

Also prominently featured is Harvey Milk, a leading human rights activist who became one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States, and who was assassinated in 1978 after only a year in office.

There’s a letter of his that was in his jacket pocket when he was shot, according to Wallover.

For many, it’s personal

John Lake, who works for one of the sponsors of the exhibit, found it deeply personal.

“The 50th anniversary of Stonewall is so important to me personally, because I look back and all of the progress that’s been made has really happened within the course of my lifetime,” he explained.

Walking through the exhibit, he says he saw things that impacted his life “in a very real way.”

“Like seeing Jim Obergefell’s jacket that he was married in — that happened around the same time that I proposed to my husband,” he said. “So, to get that kind of grounding and to see those moments really coming to life for the community, it just really brings it home.”

While there have been great strides made in the gay rights movement over the past 50 years, many acknowledge there’s still much work to be done for the 4.5 percent of Americans — roughly 10 million people — who identify as LGBTQ, or Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer or Questioning.

“In the exhibit, we highlight the strides and the setbacks,” Wallover explained, pointing out that challenges remain for members of the LGBTQ community who are still striving for equality, such as transgender people.

“We talk about the transgender ban that’s currently in effect that the Supreme Court just upheld, and we also talk about the violence against that group, primarily transgender women of color,” she added. “So, we still have work to do.”

The exhibit, which will travel nationally after its run at the Newseum, includes educational resources for students and teachers.
…

The streets around The Stonewall Inn are quiet now.

But 50 years ago in June 1969, this popular gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village was the site of violent confrontation when an unprovoked police raid triggered widespread outrage, resulting in several days of riots and demonstrations.

Many believe the uprising was the catalyst for the modern gay rights movement.

Now, a groundbreaking new exhibit titled “Rise Up: Stonewall and the LGBTQ Rights Movement” at the Newseum in Washington explores that tumultuous period in American history.

Exhibit writer Christy Wallover says the numerous displays focus on the courageous efforts of everyday Americans.

“This big movement was spurred on by people who wanted to make a change, whether that’s fighting for the right to work and serve, whether that’s parading in the streets and celebrating who you are, or whether that’s winning the right to marry.”​

WATCH: New Exhibit Commemorates 50 Years of Gay Rights Movement

​Marriage equality

Jim Obergefell was one of those people. He fought for marriage equality in the state of Ohio for him and his longtime partner, John Arthur.

They had been together for 18 years when Arthur was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and within two years was in at-home hospice care.

“Because we lived in Ohio, we were not able to get married,” Obergefell explained. So, the two chartered a medical jet and flew to Baltimore, Maryland, where same-sex marriage had become legal Jan.1, 2013.

They were married that year inside the airplane on the tarmac at Baltimore Washington International Airport by Arthur’s aunt Paulette Roberts.

Arthur died a few months later.

But Ohio did not recognize their marriage. Upon Arthur’s death, Obergefell could not be listed as Arthur’s surviving spouse. Obergefell sued the state.

The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Obergefell won. On June 26, 2015, marriage equality became the law of the land.

​Symbolic artifacts

Obergefell loaned some of his most prized possessions to the Newseum to illustrate his story: the couple’s wedding rings that he had fused together after Arthur’s death; the jacket Obergefell wore when they married; and the bowtie he wore when the Supreme Court decision was announced.

Fighting back tears, Obergefell explained why he did it.

“Because it’s my marriage. It’s the love of my life. It’s the man I was willing to do anything for and to fight all the way to the Supreme Court to defend, and to protect, and to live up to my promises to him.”

Other items featured in the exhibit represent trailblazers such as Frank Kameny, who many consider the father of the LGBTQ rights movement.

His portable typewriter — on view in a display case — was used to create memos, pamphlets, “and everything he used to petition and protest the government,” Wallover explained.

There are also items from several U.S. politicians.

A red suit from Tammy Baldwin, who in 1998 became the first openly gay woman elected to Congress, and artifacts from Congressman Barney Frank, who revealed he was gay in an interview with The Boston Globe in 1987 after having served for three terms.

Also prominently featured is Harvey Milk, a leading human rights activist who became one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States, and who was assassinated in 1978 after only a year in office.

There’s a letter of his that was in his jacket pocket when he was shot, according to Wallover.

For many, it’s personal

John Lake, who works for one of the sponsors of the exhibit, found it deeply personal.

“The 50th anniversary of Stonewall is so important to me personally, because I look back and all of the progress that’s been made has really happened within the course of my lifetime,” he explained.

Walking through the exhibit, he says he saw things that impacted his life “in a very real way.”

“Like seeing Jim Obergefell’s jacket that he was married in — that happened around the same time that I proposed to my husband,” he said. “So, to get that kind of grounding and to see those moments really coming to life for the community, it just really brings it home.”

While there have been great strides made in the gay rights movement over the past 50 years, many acknowledge there’s still much work to be done for the 4.5 percent of Americans — roughly 10 million people — who identify as LGBTQ, or Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer or Questioning.

“In the exhibit, we highlight the strides and the setbacks,” Wallover explained, pointing out that challenges remain for members of the LGBTQ community who are still striving for equality, such as transgender people.

“We talk about the transgender ban that’s currently in effect that the Supreme Court just upheld, and we also talk about the violence against that group, primarily transgender women of color,” she added. “So, we still have work to do.”

The exhibit, which will travel nationally after its run at the Newseum, includes educational resources for students and teachers.
…

A groundbreaking new exhibit at the Newseum in Washington marks the 50th anniversary of a police raid on a gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village, and highlights key moments in the modern gay rights movement in America that many believe was born out of that historic event. For some members of the LGBTQ community, the exhibit is deeply personal. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
…

A groundbreaking new exhibit at the Newseum in Washington marks the 50th anniversary of a police raid on a gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village, and highlights key moments in the modern gay rights movement in America that many believe was born out of that historic event. For some members of the LGBTQ community, the exhibit is deeply personal. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
…