North Adams Holocaust Museum Attracting Attention
 MTA conference attendees visits sites around North Adams including the New England Holocaust Institute. |
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The small museum on Eagle Street is growing — along with its attendance.
The New England Holocaust Institute was filled Tuesday with educators attending the annual Massachusetts Teachers Association summer conference at Williams College.
Museum founder Darrell K. English had recently expanded the back of the venue, providing plenty of space as he answered questions about the museum and his collection, only a small portion of which is on display.
The space is not only unusual in the artsy mill town, it's unique in New England. And it's existence surprises not only visitors but longtime residents.
"I didn't know about this," said Debra Bailey of Adams, a former teacher who wandered in only because she noticed the large group. She thought it was a bookstore (the museum is next to the former Papyri Books), "then I realized what was it was."
"I think this is important," she said.
English told the two dozen educators his collecting of World War II paraphernalia could be traced back to his father, a paratrooper in the war, and a steady diet of "Hogan's Heroes," "Rat Patrol" and "12 O'Clock High." "I bugged all my relatives for their stuff and then I bugged my friends for their fathers' stuff," he said of a collection that numbers more than a 10,000 pieces.
There is still work to do in developing the exhibit informationally and educationally; English so far has set it up chronologically to allow the visitor to browse examples of the rise of Nazism, propaganda used to demonize the Jewish population, photographs, military uniforms and concentration camp artifacts.
One teacher said she liked the intimacy of the venue because "it can get you up close." Institutions like Yad Vashem, the world Holocaust center in Jerusalem that she had visited, tended to be "massive and overwhelming."
"It is so awful it was allowed to happen," said Bobbi Katz of Sharon, who had been to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site in Germany. It's a difficult subject to teach children, she said.
Justyna Carlson, a retired educator and chairman of the city's Historical Commission, has been setting up local field trips for visiting teachers for the past decade. Spots on the popular ventures fill up quick, and there's usually a waiting list.
"We do things that are important to teachers," she said, which means historical or educational locations with some recreation mixed in. Last year's trip included visits to the Adams Quaker Meeting House, the Susan B. Anthony Birthplace and the Cheshire Cheese Monument, and a walk along the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail.
This year, 25 teachers signed up for a tour of North Adams — the Houghton Mansion, the Public Library and the Holocaust Museum, with a side trip to Natural Bridge and a picnic lunch at Western Gateway Heritage State Park and the North Adams Museum of History and Science.
English, who also works with the Holocaust Studies program at Clarksburg School, hopes to improve the educational aspect of the institution, such as inviting speakers to take advantage of the larger space. Meanwhile, the institute's foot traffic has increased — about 50 or 60 a week — and recent coverage in publications like The Boston Globe is sparking larger interest. English hopes that will translate to something bigger.
"This little place right here in North Adams," he said, looking around. "This is really getting a lot of attention."
Tags: Eagle Street, Holocaust, museum,
