Cattle car exhibit gives Coral Springs new view of Holocaust, confronts hate
Amy Gilson was in tears as the cattle car experience ended. She stood to touch the walls, where the faces of Jews, Gypsies and other “undesirables” under the Nazi regime had been projected minutes before.
It gave her a new perspective, she said — even as someone who volunteers with many Jewish organizations, with a focus on Holocaust survivors.
“I’ve never really been faced with antisemitism,” she told the Coral Springs News on Friday, Jan. 30. “I haven’t.”
“The people that really need to see this are not coming,” she added. “Those that are just unaware. They’re ignorant. They’ve been taught prejudice, or they’ve been taught to judge people based on their religion, sexuality, just ignorant.”
The “Hate Ends Now: Cattle Car Exhibit,” which made a stop on Friday at Coral Springs City Hall, provides visitors the opportunity to walk through and interact with a replica cattle car, mirroring experiences of Jewish people and others taken to concentration camps during the Holocaust.
Elected officials spoke to a crowd of students, teachers and city staff, highlighting what they hoped visitors would take away from the car.
“We don’t want to repeat history, and if we’re not careful, that can be our reality,” Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen told the Coral Springs News. “This is a way for all religions to come, all beings, all walks of life, to really just reflect and use this as a teachable moment, opposed to just focusing on what divides us.”
“We need to continue to build a world where events like the Holocaust can never happen again,” Commissioner Joshua Simmons told the crowd. “Some think that it can’t because the pictures are in black and white. But, at any given time back then, life was in color, just like it is today.”
The experience also includes a collection of 25 original artifacts from Nazi Germany and concentration camps, including a prisoner’s shoes, a uniform and propaganda.
“The reason this has to be done is to remind people you know how dangerous hate can be, and what the results of that can be. And so that we have to do this to combat the rise of hatred and antisemitism and the lies that now spread online in social media,” Congressman Jared Moskowitz told the Coral Springs News.
“Giving [students] real-life experiences, hearing from people who went through the Holocaust, it’s very important.”
The exhibit mainly travels to high schools in the southern United States, but has also been in Times Square and the White House. Its main goal since its inception was to work with students, educating them on how hate spreads — and how to stop it.
“The Holocaust didn’t start with cattle cars,” Hate Ends Now CEO Todd Cohn told the Coral Springs News. “It started with everyday people that didn’t have the courage or the educational background and strength to stand up to hate.”
“We’ll back engineer what Hitler did to be able to mobilize an entire nation and indoctrinate entire nation to hate, and so it helps them understand, what are the things that we’re looking for. Ultimately, it’s not just about antisemitism. It is about all the flavors of hate. We just happen to use the Holocaust as a lens to teach that lesson.”
The opportunity was organized by the Coral Springs Multicultural Committee. Metayer Bowen, the group’s commission liason, praised the work that its members have done.
“I just want to celebrate the multicultural committee for making very hard decisions and having very hard conversations, because right now, that is those conversations that matter the most,” Metayer Bowen told the Coral Springs News.
”We don’t need to shy away from them — If we’re not careful of really studying history, we are more likely to revisit it.”
Continue scrolling for more photos from Friday’s “Hate Ends Now: Cattle Car Exhibit” at Coral Springs City Hall:
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