By Carl Knaack (BA ’26)
Triple major in Anthropology, Classical Humanities, and Religious Studies, with certificates in Jewish Studies, Archaeology, and Material Culture Studies
I was invited on a tour of several important sites of Jewish history in the Cincinnati area by Center for Jewish Studies Board Member Jim Hilb (BA ’68) and his wife, Barbara Pasch Hilb (BA ’70). We started out early in the morning on Friday, December 26, and began the day at the Nancy and David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center at the Cincinnati Museum Center.
This museum is housed in Cincinnati Union Terminal, a beautiful art deco building completed in 1933. Jim had shared that his family left Germany in the mid-1930s to escape the Holocaust they saw was developing, and that his parents had arrived through that train station as they came to settle in the Cincinnati region.
First, we spent several hours in the exhibit, “Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away.” It was tragic, yet inspiring at the same time. There were stories of persecution and resistance, loss and love, death and rebuilding life. Some of the highlights for myself included a shofar that someone had either smuggled in or made in Auschwitz, that was blown on Yom Kippur 1944 in the camp. This shofar survived the war, but its maker likely did not.
There were also several pieces of clothing. There was a red leather shoe and a shoe for a little girl, evidencing the dehumanization of the concentration camps.
The Auschwitz Exhibit ended with a section talking about building new lives in the Cincinnati area, where the people who had endured such suffering built new lives.
The permanent exhibit in the Holocaust Museum focused on those local stories. There was an interactive screen where you could ask a recording of a Holocaust survivor, Cincinnati local Al Miller, questions about his story. This truly brought home the proximity of the Holocaust. It is not a distant event; it affected people in our communities.
After this we went on a brief excursion to try a Cincinnati classic food staple, Skyline Chili. It was a very enjoyable experience.
The day concluded with a Torah reading at the Isaac M. Wise Temple. The Hilb/Schild Torah had been transported to Cincinnati, Ohio in the mid-1930s by Jim Hilb’s parents and grandparents, as they foresaw the coming Holocaust. It was then loaned to a now out-of-existence Orthodox synagogue in Cincinnati. Jim Hilb and family moved the Torah to the Isacc M. Wise Temple, on loan, to be displayed and used by the congregation from the Temple library when needed. The Torah has been used by Jim and Barbara Hilb’s five grandchildren at their B’nai’ Mitzvah events in the Chicago area in front of family and friends, confirming that this scroll is a living and breathing example of Jewish history. It was a beautiful scroll that was several centuries old.
Rabbi Zachary Goodman of the Wise Temple took the Torah scroll out and allowed me to hold it. I was able to read a passage out of Leviticus, and it was a deeply moving experience. It crowned the day, as it showed the resistance and vitality of the Jewish people. The Nazis tried to exterminate the Jewish people and extinguish their way of life. But the Torah has survived. The Jewish people have survived.
This was a very moving day, filled with great conversations. It was a story of victory, of resilience, and of family. The day was crowned with a beautiful testament to the living vitality of the Jewish people.
