Alabama Holocaust Education Center

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Alabama Holocaust Education Center

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Keeping the History and Lessons of the Holocaust Alive. The AHEC will be reopening its new facility soon.

We invite you to explore and share our online programming and content.

10/31/2026

Day 10: Standing at Auschwitz

On the last day of our journey, we visited Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Nothing could have prepared me for what it felt like to stand on that ground. At Treblinka, I felt a sacred stillness. At Birkenau, I felt only anger. And standing there, I began to understand that I was not meant to find peace in that moment. I was meant to find resolve.

Remembrance is not enough. We must help people understand how this became possible, so we can recognize the warning signs in our own time.

As we left, our team stood arm in arm before the gates of Birkenau and made a promise: to turn anger into purpose, and remembrance into action.

We carry out of Auschwitz a renewed purpose.

Lisa

Read my full thoughts on this day here: https://ahecinfo.org/auschwitz-day-10/

10/31/2026

Keeping our community safe is essential to keeping our doors open for education, remembrance, and meaningful conversations.

We are deeply grateful to The Birmingham Jewish Federation and Foundation for their generous grant to help strengthen safety and security at the Alabama Holocaust Education Center.

Every day, we welcome students, educators, and community members to learn about the Holocaust and the important lessons it holds for our world today. Providing a safe and welcoming environment for these experiences is one of our highest priorities.

This investment is more than support for security. It is an investment in our mission, our community, and our ability to continue the important work of Holocaust education.

Thank you to The Birmingham Jewish Federation and Foundation for recognizing the importance of protecting the spaces where history is remembered, difficult conversations take place, and understanding begins.

10/30/2026

Alabama Holocaust Survivor Robert May’s apartment in Frankfurt was vandalized during Kristallnacht. That morning, a fellow tenant warned Robert and his Aunt Emma to stay away from their apartment, so they spent the night of Kristallnacht walking the streets of their neighborhood. The next morning, when they returned to their apartment, they found that their furniture had been turned over, their beds had been ripped apart, and all the glass in their apartment was broken. They turned their mattresses over, had the glass replaced, and continued to live in their apartment. Later, when asked if he was shocked by the vandalism, Robert replied, “No more than usual.”

In Camburg, Germany, Robert’s hometown, a business belonging to Robert’s family was also vandalized. The vandals smashed the May family’s store windows, and in the family home upstairs, the vandals cut their pillows open, overturned some of their furniture, and threw other furniture out the smashed windows. The damage was so extensive that the May family was unable to reopen their store after Kristallnacht.

Because the synagogue in Camberg sat between two non-Jewish homes, it could not be burned, as other synagogues across Germany were. Instead, the N***s, directed by the Mayor of Camberg, tied a chain around the wall between the two windows of the synagogue where the Holy Ark was housed. They attached the chain to a truck and pulled the wall out. They destroyed the synagogue’s interior, threw out the Torah scrolls and other ritual objects, and completely demolished the building.

After Kristallnacht, life in Germany became impossible for the May family. Robert fled to England in 1939, where he was joined by his parents. In 1940, they fled to Cuba and then to New Orleans. Robert made his home in Alabama in 1954.

10/27/2026

Today, we remember the 11 lives tragically taken on October 27, 2018, at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. We honor their memories and the families and community forever changed by this horrific act of antisemitism.

And we also remember what happened in the days that followed. A community came together across faiths, backgrounds, and beliefs. Differences mattered less than our shared humanity. People showed up for one another, offering compassion, comfort, and solidarity.

In a world that feels increasingly divided, may we remember that spirit of unity. We don't have to be the same to stand together. We simply have to recognize the humanity in one another.

May we never forget the lives lost, or the powerful reminder of what is possible when compassion is stronger than division.

10/27/2026

(Reminder) Bring history to life through firsthand testimony.

Don't miss your chance to join the Alabama Holocaust Education Center for a virtual field trip featuring Holocaust survivor Ben Benninga, who will share his story of childhood, hiding, rescue, liberation, and survival during the Holocaust. Students will also have the opportunity to participate in a live Q&A with Ben.

November 4
10:00 AM CT
Via Zoom

This standards-aligned learning experience gives students the opportunity to engage directly with survivor testimony as a powerful primary source.

Spots are filling up! Scan the QR code to register before it's too late!

10/25/2026

Day 9: Rescue

Today we visited the former Jewish Ghetto in Kraków, the Eagle Pharmacy, and Oskar Schindler’s Factory.

Two very different men stayed with me. Oskar Schindler began as an opportunist who profited from Jewish labor, but he changed and ultimately risked everything to save more than 1,000 Jews. Tadeusz Pankiewicz, a Polish Catholic pharmacist, had the chance to leave the ghetto and chose to stay, giving medicine, food, and shelter to his Jewish neighbors at great risk to himself.

They arrived at courage from very different places. Neither could stop the Holocaust, but both refused to believe they were powerless to act.

And I continue to wonder: what would I have done?

- Lisa

Read my full thoughts on this day here: https://ahecinfo.org/krakow-day-9/

10/24/2026

Day 8: Dilemmas and Dialogues

What do you do when there is no good choice?

Today, we visited the Łódź Jewish Cemetery and the Marek Edelman Center for Dialogue, where we learned about the impossible moral choices the N***s forced on Jewish leaders in the Łódź Ghetto. We cannot change those choices. But we can look closely at the ones we make today.

When the moment comes to choose between what is easy and what is right, will we have the courage to act?

Lisa
Read my full thoughts here: https://ahecinfo.org/lodz-day-8/

10/23/2026

Day 7: The Power of Remembrance

In Tykocin, the synagogue was restored after the war. Because the prayer books had been destroyed, the prayers were written directly onto the walls. The N***s destroyed books, buildings, and lives, but they did not destroy spirit.

At Treblinka, more than 900,000 people were murdered in a little over a year. Imagine the entire Birmingham metro area. Suddenly, a number becomes an entire world of people.

We cannot change what happened in that forest. But we can remember them, tell their stories, and refuse to let the world forget.

Lisa
Read my full thoughts here: https://ahecinfo.org/treblinka-day-7/

10/22/2026

During Kristallnacht, Alabama Holocaust Survivor Leo Kohn was arrested by the Gestapo. They returned him to his home the same night, but in a shocking reversal, the Gestapo came back for Leo the next day and took him to the concentration camp of Buchenwald. Leo was one of 30,000 Jewish men who were deported to concentration camps in the aftermath of Kristallnacht.

Unlike many of the men who were deported that night, Leo was released from Buchenwald three weeks later, likely because a copy of his Hindenburg Honor Cross award certificate was found in his wallet. The Hindenburg Cross confirmed that Leo was a front-line combatant for Germany during WWI, which likely saved his life. In just three weeks, Leo had lost thirty pounds, and his hair had turned white. He returned wearing only a raincoat.

Before releasing him from Buchenwald, an SS officer had threatened Leo, “If you tell anybody one word of what has happened here, we will get you wherever you are. On a little farm in America, on a desert in Africa, or in an Asian jungle.” Despite the threats and abuses he had faced, Leo still shared his story later in life, keeping the history and lessons of the Holocaust alive. He fled to England as a condition of his release and then to America.

10/21/2026

Our second this month honors Frieda Kahn and Hermann Berger.

Childhood friends from neighboring German villages, Frieda and Hermann fell in love as young adults and married just months before fleeing Germany in 1938.

They found a new home in Selma, Alabama, where they built a life and raised a family in a community unlike anything they'd known before.

We share their story so it is never forgotten.

Address

2100 Highland Avenue, South, Suite 101
Birmingham, AL
35205

Website

http://www.ahecinfo.org/

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