New Holocaust Center Opening At Tulsa's Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art

A new Holocaust Center is preparing for the grand opening at Tulsa’s Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art.

The Holocaust Center is the only one in Oklahoma and will open in a few weeks. 

The center has been three years in the making, and everything is specifically planned out with one purpose: “To teach about the Holocaust. Why it happened, when it happened, and those who were affected, and how it affects us today," said Mickel Yantz.

Yantz is the Director of Collections and Exhibitions at the Sherwin Miller Museum.

He said the Holocaust Center is educational for all ages. 

“We typically get eighth graders from the local Tulsa Public Schools system, but this is for adults, and anybody that wants to see and hear these stories of what really happened," said Yantz.

The center walks visitors through a timeline of what life was like for Jewish families during World War II in Europe.

Guests hear from survivors who moved to Oklahoma after the Holocaust.

“Each case tells it’s own story. It either tells a personal memento – a blanket that kept somebody warm, a knife or a piece of soap. Something that is personal that we don’t sometimes realize that everybody needed to survive," said Yantz.

Yantz said parts of Oklahoma's history are also included in the center.

There is a wall that mentions the Muscogee Creek Trail of Tears and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. 

“Obviously, the theme is never again do we ever want to see this, and there are atrocities out there. There is still hate out there, and we feel that being able to educate, about the Holocaust specifically, can bring people into what happened in the past and realize what’s going on today," said Yantz.

The Holocaust Center opens November 9th and will be open seven days a week. 

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