Holocaust Center Recalls Awful Days : Commemoration: Jews in Laguna Hills relive Nazis’ 1938 reign of terror, <i> Kristallnacht</i> , which ushered in a dreadful time.

In 1944, when 9-year-old Osi Sladek lay hiding from the Nazis in the mountains of Czechoslovakia, he never expected that nearly half a century later the experience would inspire him to open Orange County’s first Holocaust center.

“I thought the world would put (the Holocaust) behind it,” said Sladek, now 57, a Jew whose harrowing World War II experiences included twice being smuggled across the Czech/Hungarian border and spending six months nearly starving to death in the mountains with his parents.

Sadly, Sladek says, the world hasn’t yet moved on. Events in many countries today mirror the brutality that Jews experienced at the hands of Nazis. Economic unraveling threatens to encourage the rise of racism and Neo-fascism. And the recent Los Angeles riots evoked visceral reactions in many Holocaust survivors who lived through a time still etched in their memories after 54 years. It was Kristallnacht (Crystal Night, the two days and nights in 1938 when the Nazis ushered in the Holocaust by rampaging through the streets of Germany attacking Jewish establishments, burning synagogues and beating or killing Jews.

“I had goose bumps when I saw the L.A. riot,” said Harry Fern, a Mission Viejo resident who lived through Kristallnacht. “It all came back to me; it was like a videotape of 1938. I never thought I’d see that again.”

Fern, 72, shared those memories Monday at a memorial service commemorating the 54th anniversary of the event at Temple Judea in Laguna Hills.

Other observances around the world included the laying of the cornerstone of a new Jewish museum in Berlin; protests against rising anti-Semitism in Germany by thousands of young people in Israel and Italy, and the naming of a formerly exiled Jewish writer as the new chief rabbi of Czechoslovakia.

Appropriately, Sladek chose the same day to announce the opening of the Rosen Holocaust Center of Southern California, a response to his own suffering of so many years ago. It’s purpose: to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive, relating it to today’s events in a way that will make history less likely to repeat itself.

“The world has not healed the wounds of that era,” Sladek said in an interview. “Unfortunately, the Holocaust has not ended.”

While other Holocaust centers exist in San Francisco and Los Angeles, he said, they are too far away to serve the people of Orange County. And because of its conservative history, he said, the county is a particularly appropriate location for a center dedicated to illustrating the ultimate dangers of right-wing extremism.

For the time being, Sladek said, those dangers will be illustrated primarily by sending speakers to area organizations and schools, working with teachers on developing new curricula and creating a library of Holocaust materials. Although presently the center is housed in a small office at Jewish Federation of Orange County headquarters in Tustin, eventually Sladek hopes to establish a museum of Holocaust artifacts similar to the private collection owned by Holocaust survivor Mel Mermelstein in Huntington Beach.

All of which, of course, will take money.

Sladek, the center’s executive director, says he started the project with about a year’s operating expenses donated by Hy Rosen, an area businessman and philanthropist for whom the center is named. Eventually, he said, he hopes to organize enough fund-raisers to raise $80,000 to $100,000 a year to keep the center open.

“I just wanted to do something meaningful,” said Sladek, formerly executive director of Temple Bat Yahm in Newport Beach. “Orange County is so multiethnic; there are so many groups here. There is a need for education, a need to bring people together.”

That certainly seemed to be the spirit of Monday’s gathering.

“Our scars are there forever,” Fern told the assemblage gathered around a sculpture commemorating the Holocaust. Later they heard an Israeli opera singer perform songs written by composers who were among those killed. “No one should feel this pain again,” Fern said.

Said Sladek: “We all must consider ourselves witnesses.”