A new exhibit marking the 80th anniversary of the Auschwitz concentration camp liberation begins Tuesday at Stockton University’s Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center.
“Sweet Home Sweet: A Story of Survival, Memory and Returns” runs until May 9 in Room L-112 at the university’s Galloway Township campus.
The exhibit is based on the life story of Richard Ores, a Holocaust survivor born in Krakow, Poland, and was a consultant on Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List."
Ores died in 2011.
At the outbreak of World War II, he was forced to live in the Krakow ghetto with his mother and sister.
In 1943, he was marched to Plaszow, a nearby labor camp. In the final months of the war, he was a prisoner in three other concentration camps — Sachsenhausen, Flossenbürg and finally Dachau, where he was liberated in April 1945. He was the only person in his immediate family to survive.
Ores emigrated to New York in 1955, but he never forgot about Poland.
He raised funds for hospital equipment for a clinic in Krakow and for the renovation and care of many of the city’s Jewish heritage sites with the Ronald Lauder Foundation. He was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, the Cross of the Home Army, and the Oświęcim Cross.
The opening is at 6 p.m. Tuesday, featuring keynote speaker Adrian Chrobot, political counsellor in the Polish Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Chrobot holds a Ph.D. from the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon, Portugal, and a masters degree in Political Science from the University of Wroclaw in Poland. He also teaches at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland, and Catholic University in Murcia, Spain.
The exhibit opening is free and open to the public, but RSVP is required by calling 609-652-4699 or emailing hrc@stockton.edu.
Tours of the exhibit after the opening are available upon request by contacting the Holocaust Resource Center.
For New Jersey educators, 2.0 professional development hours are available.