// The RUTH Exhibition: The San Diego Public Library Commemorates the Holocaust

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// The RUTH Exhibition: The…

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The RUTH Holocaust exhibition is a result of a partnership with the County of San Diego and the Jewish Federation of San Diego. The exhibit features San Diego Holocaust survivors who continue to share their stories. It provides a unique, immersive experience shedding light on ALL victims of the Holocaust to demonstrate how it was not only Jewish victims, but also other victims who followed in the footsteps of their unfortunate fate as well. The exhibition will be on display through May 2024.
— KPBS.org

Quote: “We have over 6 million Jews that were killed — but those that survived, many went on to thrive, and they become examples to everyone about resilience. This is about learning from our past and who we want to be as a society.”
— Darren Schwartz, chief planning and strategy officer for the Jewish Federation of San Diego

Learn more about The RUTH Exhibit. ►

Read “ ‘You feel the presence of who’s alive’: How 15 San Diegans who survived the Holocaust are sharing their stories” ►

Watch “RUTH Remember Us the Holocaust Exhibit” [1:33]. ►

Photo: Shutterstock — for illustrative purposes only.

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Notable &
Quotable

“[T]he foundations for extremism usually are held in check by various restraints. Societies are not liberal, moderate, progressive, and free because almost all their citizens – let alone their politicians — are liberal, moderate, progressive or committed to the freedoms of others.

“But societies consistently avoid extremism when the infrastructures of freedom are strong: when key institutions and norms encourage a more decent, rights-respective, lawful politics; when powerful social movements and independent media hold leaders to account, expose rather than reinforce political fantasies, and champion the rights of the vulnerable; and when information is produced and scrutinized by scholars, civil servants, and non-governmental organizations devoid of either government repression or vested interests.

“Yet no infrastructure is rigidly immovable, and once key components are eroded and weakened, once sections of the political and cultural elite attempt to mobilize the foundations of extremism, the system of restraints can swiftly collapse.

“While genocide on the scale of the Holocaust is historically exceptional, its central lesson is that the broader danger of extreme atrocities is not. In the words of the great historian Ian Kershaw, the Holocaust ‘lit a warning beacon that still burns brightly: it showed how a modern, advanced, cultured society can so rapidly sink into barbarity… It showed what we are capable of.’ Only by rejecting false narratives of conflict and polarization, and maintaining systems of rights and freedoms for all, can we hope to prevent that capability from once more becoming a reality.”

— Jonathan Leader Maynard in his incisive article “Could It Happen Here?: The Holocaust and Atrocities in the 21st Century” To read the entire article, click here.