You’re invited to partner with HMTC as we continue to lead the fight against antisemitism and hate here Long Island and throughout New York.

We need you now. And we need you for the future – for HMTC to continue, enhance, and expand its critical education programs for students of all backgrounds.

At this kick-off event, you’ll experience HMTC’s vital work, including new artificial intelligence technology that keeps Holocaust survivor stories alive. Tour our exhibits, meet our community, and see how together, we can build a future we’re proud of. 

REGISTER HERE

In this meeting of our monthly book club, hosted by HMTC’s Louis Posner Memorial Library, we will be discussing Maus I & II, by Art Spiegelman’s. This Pulitzer Prize-winning book, written in the graphic novel style, is a story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma. Using hand-drawn pictures of Jews as mice and Nazis as cats, the book powerfully depicts Spiegelman's heartfelt interviews with his aging father, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor, and then tells the desperate story of his father's experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz.

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

In this meeting of our monthly book club, hosted by HMTC’s Louis Posner Memorial Library, we will be discussing House on Endless Waters, by Emuna Elon, a page-turning family mystery about a writer who discovers his mother’s youthful face in historic film footage of the Dutch Jewish community before WWII, alongside his father, his older sister, and an infant he doesn’t recognize.

Shining a light on Amsterdam’s dark wartime history, this contemporary novel by the Israeli writer Emuna Elon follows one man’s startling discovery that his mother had a wartime baby he knows nothing about and that his own origins are not what he thought they were. This launches him on a fervent search for truth through the tangled path of the Holocaust in Holland, one in which he has to answer the question that has haunted him for a lifetime: Who am I?

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

The Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County and the Holocaust Remembrance Association have worked to create a temporary exhibition that will draw attention to the largely forgotten history of the Holocaust in Transnistria. Although poorly known outside of academic circles, this 16,000 square mile region in western Ukraine between the Dniester and Bug Rivers, was home to 300,000 Jews before the war, the largest number in and around the important port city of Odessa.

In June of 1941, the Nazi’s gave the area to its ally Romania, which soon decided to use the region of Transnistria as the destination for Jews deported from the Bessarabia, Bukovina, and the northern Moldavia regions of Romania. Altogether, Romania deported approximately 150,000 Jews to Transnistria, who joined the estimated 185,000 Ukrainian Jews who had failed to escape before the Nazi invasion.

By the end of 1943, almost all of the 185,000 Ukrainian Jews had been murdered by Romanian and German soldiers. In addition, nearly 100,000 of the 150,000 Jews deported from Romania to Transnistria had been murdered or had died from exposure, starvation, or disease. The 250,000 to 280,000 Jews who were killed within the relatively small confines of Transnistria represent almost the same number as those killed in the more well-known death camp of Sobibor, and yet few people know the name of the area or the camp of Bogdanovka where 48,000 Jews were killed in only a few short weeks. This exhibition explores the history of this area and explains why it is so poorly known.

Join us for our official launch. You’ll also have the rare opportunity to meet Transnistria survivors at this event.

For any questions or concerns contact info@hmtcli.org. See you there!

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

In this program, the next in our series of presentations by the children of Holocaust Survivors (2Gs), Dinah Kramer presented the testimony of her mother Sara Gole, originally from Kielce, Poland, who survived several forced labor camps and a death march to Buchenwald, where she was liberated by American troops on April 26, 1945.

If you missed this program, you can watch it now on Youtube:

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

In this meeting of our monthly book club, hosted by HMTC’s Louis Posner Memorial Library, we will be discussing Mila 18, by Leon Uris, a novel about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943.

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

HMTC joins with a Congregation Shaaray Shalom, the American Jewish Committee and a number of regional partners to present a Yom HaShoah program with Father Patrick Desbois, the forensic detective and world-renowned human-rights activist who has been documenting the war crimes of the Einsatzgruppen and other more recent genocides.

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

HMTC is joining with a number of community partners to present a program on Yom Hashoah about the dangers of white nationalism and hate in America today. The central speaker will be Christian Picciolini, an award-winning television producer, public speaker, author, peace advocate, and reformed violent extremist. His life’s work bears witness to an ongoing and profound need to atone for a grisly past and an urgency to make something of his time on this planet by contributing to the greater good.

Please note that this program will be held at Temple Sinai of Roslyn at 425 Roslyn Road, Roslyn Heights, NY 11577.

Photo ID required for admission. All attendees 16 years of age and older must furnish proof of vaccination. Those under 16 must furnish proof of a negative Covid test dated April 28. All attendees must be properly masked at all times.

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County presents

New Manhattan Sinfonietta

Hymns from Auschwitz: A Tribute to Viktor Ullman and Michel Assael

In honor of Yom HaShoah, join us for a never-before-seen musical performance in memory of two Holocaust victims; one who survived; and one who was murdered.

New Manhattan Sinfonietta brings together soulful premieres. This meaningful concert includes “Hymns from Auschwitz” featuring hazans and a piano orchestral piece by Elcil Gürel Göçtü, a young student composer who worked with Renan Koen on her March of the Music initiative. The concert also includes Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, K. 491 by W.A. Mozart, which Renan Koen will perform in memoriam of Viktor Ullmann. The performance will conclude with the debut of the Auschwitz Symphonic Poem written by Holocaust survivor Michel Assael. This poem was locked away and ultimately found by Dr. Joe Halio through his passionate research, and Renan Koen assisted in bringing this masterpiece to life.

ELCİL GÜREL GÖÇTÜ (1979-)  Hymns from Auschwitz 

featuring Hazan Rabbi Nesim Elnecavé and Ilker Nahmias 

    ~World Premiére~

W.A.MOZART (1756-1791)            Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, K. 491

MICHEL ASSAEL (1918-2006)   Auschwitz Symphonic Poém

“In memoriam of five million hostages slaughtered in the concentration camps, innocent victims of the most unhuman and barbaric frenzy”

       ~World Premiére~

This moving musical score was written by Michel Assael, a Jewish musician and composer from Salonika, Greece. After surviving Auschwitz, Assael wrote this piece in memory of all that was lost. The piece was written in 1947, but has never been performed. It has recently been rediscovered and will be given its debut performance at this not-to-be missed concert.

This event is also in memory of Viktor Ullman, a Silesian-born Austrian and renowned composer, and conductor who was sent to Terezin where he organized concerts and performed during the war. Ullman was ultimately deported to Auschwitz and was killed in the gas chambers.

We’re proud to honor Martin Elias, a steadfast supporter of Holocaust and tolerance education. We thank Martin for his generosity and support in making this concert a reality.

Sponsorship Packages

Legacy - $50,000
Includes 16 tickets in prime locations, corporate host for a VIP reception and invites for 16 guests to the VIP reception, prominent listing on HMTC website, prominent listing in HMTC event-related emails and social media promoting this event, prominent listing in the playbill.

Upstander - $25,000
Includes 10 tickets in prime locations, an invitation for 10 to VIP reception, prominent listing on HMTC website, prominent listing in HMTC emails and social media promoting this event, prominent listing in the playbill.

Tolerance - $20,000
Includes 8 tickets in prime locations, 8 invitations to the VIP reception, listing on HMTC website, listing in HMTC emails and social media promoting this event, listing in the playbill.

Resistance - $10,000
Includes 6 tickets in prime locations, 6 invitations to the VIP reception, listing on HMTC website, listing in the playbill.

Understanding - $5,000
Includes 4 tickets in prime locations, 4 invitations to the VIP reception, listing on HMTC website, listing in the playbill.

Remembrance - $2,500
Includes 2 tickets in prime locations, 2 invitations to the VIP reception, listing on HMTC website, listing in the playbill.

Digital Journal Ads
For all gifts of $500 or more, you’re invited to place an ad in HMTC’s Hymns from Auschwitz event journal. Once you make your gift, we’ll be in touch with you about your ad. If you get a sponsorship package, we’ll also be in touch with you to go over your VIP seating arrangement options.

Individual Tickets 
Tickets to this event range from $27 to $180. per ticket. 

For more information about sponsorship packages, tickets, or the event, contact Gayle Peck at gaylepeck@holocaust-nassau.org.

carnegiehall.org | CarnegieCharge 212-247-7800 | Box Office at 57th and Seventh Avenue

Please direct all donations related to this event to the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County.

About Viktor Ullman

Viktor Ullman was a renowned composer and conductor, trapped in Prague when the Nazis invaded. He was deported to Terezin where he organized concerts and performed. Ironically, he wrote prolifically while interned, pieces we enjoy today. Sadly, he was murdered in Auschwitz. 

“It must be emphasized that Theresienstadt has served to enhance, not impede, my musical activities, that by no means did we sit weeping on the banks of the waters of Babylon, and that our endeavor with respect to Arts was commensurate with our will to live. And I am convinced that all those who, in life and art, were fighting to force form upon the resisting matter, will agree with me.” -- V. Ullman 

About Michel Assael
Michel Assael was born in Salonika, Greece, and was deported to Auschwitz in 1943. Surviving selections, he became a member of the orchestra along with his sisters, Lily and Yvette. Dr. Albert Menache, a physician, heard the orchestra needed an accordion player and recommended Michel. In turn, Lily helped Dr. Menache’s daughter get into the orchestra, sadly she did not survive. Upon liberation, Dr. Menache wrote a detailed account of the Greek experience. Michel, inspired by Dr. Menache’s account, wrote a score in memory of all that was lost. The score sat in a box since 1946, never transcribed or performed. After the war, many survivors emigrated to New York, Michel and Albert among them. 

About Renan Koen

Pianist, Composer, Soprano, Music Therapist, Columnist

Koen started her studies in music with the flute in 1979, when the conductor of the Amherst College Choir discovered her talent during his stay in İstanbul for the International Music Festival. She started studying piano in 1983 with the composer Ali Darmar, and the “State Artist” Ayşegül Sarıca. Meanwhile, she received her secondary school degree from the flute studio of “Nazım Acar” at Mimar Sinan University State Conservatory. Between 1985 and 1986, she furthered her studies in piano in Paris with Germaine Mounier. In 1990-1991 she continued her studies in London with the pedagogue Maria Curcio and her assistant Mark Swartzentruber.

Read the rest of Renan’s bio and learn more about her incredible work here.

About Gurer Aykal –

Artistic Director / Conductor

New Manhattan Sinfonietta Orchestra

Gürer Aykal, the honorary conductor of the New Manhattan Sinfonietta Orchestra, started his music education at the Ankara State Conservatoire. Studying violin with Necdet Remzi Atak and composition with Adnan Saygun. Between 1969 and 1971, he continued his education at the Guildhall School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music where he had the opportunity to work with prominent conductors such as George Hurst and Sir André Previn. Subsequently, he studied for two years in Italy where he served as assistant to Franco Ferrara in the Academia of Santa Cecilia in Rome. He was designated with the “Diploma di Merito” for conducting by the Accademia Musicale Chigiana. Meanwhile, he studied Gregorian music and Renaissance polyphony with Prof. Bertolucci in Musica di Sacra in the Vatican.

Read the rest of Gurer’s bio and learn more about his accomplishments here.

In this meeting of our monthly book club, hosted by HMTC’s Louis Posner Memorial Library, we will be discussing The Prague Sonata, by Bradford Morrow, a novel of love, war, and music that tells the story of a young scholar’s search into the events of Nazi-occupied Prague to solve the mystery behind the missing pieces of a hauntingly beautiful, unsigned sonata manuscript.

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

The Museum Director will explore a 1937 issue of the pro-Nazi German newspaper, Der Sturmer¸ that is included in our gallery. Learn about the publisher, Julius Streicher, who rallied support to the Nazi Party, but was seen as too salacious and incendiary by many of the leaders of the Nazi Party.

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

Join us for the next program in this series of presentations by Holocaust Survivors. In this program, Survivor Judith Steel will share information about her family’s departure from Germany on the SS. St. Louis, when Judith was an infant, and their forced return to Europe and subsequent internment in Gurs. She will also talk of her father's successful effort to sneak Judith into hiding with a Catholic family, enabling her to survive.

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

Thorin Tritter, HMTC’s museum and programming director, will talk about Jackie Handeli, originally from Salonika, Greece, who survived Auschwitz and who later donated several items to our museum. Several clips from Jackie Handeli’s testimony are incorporated into HMTC’s exhibition and Dr. Tritter will draw from those clips to explore how the Holocaust unfolded in Greece.

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

Bestselling author Meg Waite Clayton will present a virtual talk about her award-winning novel The Last Train to London and the true story of the Kindertransport rescue which saved the lives of ten thousand Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Europe. (This program is held in conjunction with The Dolphin Bookshop, an independent bookstore in Port Washington since 1946.)

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

HMTC is hosting a program with renowned pianist and composer Renan Koen, Maestro Gürer Aykal, Sephardic scholar Dr. Joe Halio, and others to provide a behind the scenes look at some of the music to be performed at the Carnegie Hall concert on April 20 when Holocaust Survivor Michel Assael’s “Auschwitz Symphonic Poem,” written in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, will be performed for the first time.

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

In this meeting of our monthly book club, hosted by HMTC’s Louis Posner Memorial Library, we will be discussing The Last Train to London, by Meg Waite Clayton, a novel based on the true story of the Kindertransport rescue of ten thousand Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Europe and one brave woman who made the escape possible.

For the upcoming 2021-22 book selections schedule, click here

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

HMTC and the David Taub Reel Upstander Film Series presented a screening of The Codebreaker in honor of women’s history month. The film reveals the fascinating story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, the groundbreaking cryptanalyst whose painstaking work to decode thousands of messages for the U.S. government sent infamous gangsters to prison in the 1930s and brought down a massive, near-invisible Nazi spy ring in WWII. Commentary was provided by Melissa Davis, the Library and Archives Director at the George C. Marshall Foundation, which holds the papers of Elizebeth Smith Friedman.

If you missed this program, you can watch it now on Youtube:

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

Thorin Tritter, HMTC’s museum and programming director, talked about a photograph displayed in our gallery that shows a crowd waving Nazi flags in support of the German annexation of Austria on March 12, 1938, 84 years ago this week. Dr. Tritter described why the Nazis annexed Austria and the dramatic impact on the Jewish population.

If you missed this program, you can watch it now on Youtube:

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

In this program, the next in our series of presentations by the children of Holocaust Survivors (2Gs), Meryl Menashe presented the story of her father-in-law Nissim Menashe and two other family members, all of whom grew up in the thriving Jewish community of Salonica, Greece before the war. Out of 58 known family members from Greece who experienced the Nazi invasion, they are the only three that survived. Meryl also shared a family connection to Michel Assael, whose “Auschwitz Symphonic Poem” will debut at a Carnegie Hall performance on April 20.

If you missed this program, you can watch it now on Youtube:

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

New York Times bestselling author and historian Craig Shirley drew from his new book, April 1945: The Hinge of History, to speak about the watershed events in the month of April 1945 -- the sudden death of President Roosevelt, Harry Truman's rise to office, Adolph Hitler's suicide, and the horrific discoveries of Dachau and Auschwitz – that collided and changed the face of the world forever. (This program is held in conjunction with The Dolphin Bookshop, an independent bookstore in Port Washington since 1946.)

If you missed this program, you can watch it now on Youtube:

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

Join Thorin Tritter, HMTC’s Museum and Programming Director, for a discussion about a wedding dress that was used in a wedding in Amsterdam in 1940, just before the Nazis invaded on May 10th, and then carried from the Netherlands across the Atlantic to New York. The dress offers a window into the pre-war life of Jews in Amsterdam and the terror brought on by the Nazi attack.

If you missed this program, you can watch it now on Youtube:

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

HMTC welcomes Professor Beverley Eddy who will draw from her recent book, Ritchie Boy Secrets, as she presents a program about the “Alien” soldiers at Camp Ritchie who helped the Allies win World War II. Professor Eddy will speak about the antisemitism and racism that some of the men faced, the training that was offered at Camp Ritchie, and the performance of the men in the field and after the war. (This program is held in conjunction with The Dolphin Bookshop, an independent bookstore in Port Washington since 1946.)

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

In honor of Black History Month, Dr. Thorin Tritter, HMTC’s Museum and Programming Director, talked about the several images in HMTC’s galleries that show African American soldiers. These photographs capture some of the 1.5 million African Americans who served during WWII, fighting the Nazis and their racial ideology, even while Jim Crow laws and segregation remained in force back home in the United States. Dr. Tritter discussed the Double V campaign and the fight for freedom overseas and at home.

If you missed this program, you can watch it now on Youtube:

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

HMTC hosted a program with the award-winning author and historian Michael Neiberg, who will talk about his recent book, When France Fell, and discuss what FDR’s Secretary of War Henry Stimson claimed was the “most shocking single event” of World War II. The book, which the Wall Street Journal described as a “mesmerizing account,” takes the reader through the Nazi invasion and the subsequent decision by the United States to work with Vichy France despite its pro-Nazi tendencies. (This program is held in conjunction with The Dolphin Bookshop, an independent bookstore in Port Washington since 1946.)

If you missed this program, you can watch it now on Youtube:

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

In this meeting of our monthly book club, hosted by HMTC’s Louis Posner Memorial Library, we will be discussing Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower, which tells the story of a member of the SS who seeks forgiveness on his death bed from a concentration camp prisoner and the struggle the prisoner faces between compassion and justice, silence and truth.

For the upcoming 2021-22 book selections schedule, click here

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.

Watch the next program in this series of presentations by Holocaust Survivors. In this program, Survivor Renee Silver shared the information about her family’s departure from the Saarland after its 1935 reunification with Germany, their arrest as enemy aliens and detention in the Gurs internment camp, her placement into hiding in Le Chambon-Sur-Lignon, and the family’s later reunification and flight over the Swiss border to safety.

If you missed this program, you can watch it now on Youtube:

HMTC needs your help now more than ever. Your donation will support HMTC’s virtual programming for students and adults. Help us continue to be able to provide Holocaust and Tolerance Education programs to schools and public programs for the community.