New Museum’s High-Tech Exhibits Tell of Hatred’s Toll

The generation gap was narrowed to about three feet Tuesday as the public was allowed for the first time inside the $50-million Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.

That was the distance between Holocaust survivor Lisa Neuman and high school senior Babak Eghbalieh as they stood before a computerized, wall-sized map showing the locations of about 250 hate groups in the United States.

Babak, 17, of West Los Angeles, touched the computer screen and watched as it showed where neo-Nazis are active in the country.

No stuffy museum displays here, Babak decided. He said the collection of high-tech exhibits--designed to explore the dynamics of prejudice and racism in American life--seemed more like a learning center than a museum.

“This is the kind of place that will attract young people,” he said, tracing his fingers over the computer screen, asking it to display known strongholds of white supremacists.

“I’m touching a screen and getting all this information without having to go through books. I think this museum is going to be very good for young people.”

Neuman, 80ish and a retired social worker from New York City, nodded. The young are the ones who need to know what intolerance can lead to, she said.

“I saw Hitler come by my window on March 13, 1938,” she explained. “The Viennese were jubilant. I was hiding our money in a mattress. I was very lucky. I did not have to go to the concentration camps. My aunt got us out and got us to New York.”

Neuman studied the “touch to activate” labels on the computer screen and shrugged.

“I don’t remember the codes. I’m not computer literate. I read books,” she laughed.

The pair were among 812 people who lined up for the 2 1/2-hour tour at the museum run by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Besides the 35-exhibit “Tolerancenter,” the museum includes jarringly realistic displays telling of the Holocaust and a computerized library containing maps, photos and films of World War II. Admission is $7.50 for adults, with lower prices for children, students and seniors.

Visitors walked through a replica of the gates to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Displays include fast-paced slide shows and film clips of book-burnings, the deportation of Jews, Gypsies and other “undesirables,” and the work of Nazi execution squads.

“You can see how really barbaric and inhumane it was,” said Howard Mitchell, a 43-year-old computer technician from Hawthorne. “It gives you a deeper appreciation of what Jewish people went through.”

Thirteen-year-old Thomas Loder, a seventh-grader from Culver City, sat down at a computer in the library area and within seconds was pulling up information about World War II and the invention of the atom bomb.

In the next cubicle, Kurt R. Singer threw up his hands at the computer screen in front of him. Singer, 85, of West Los Angeles, spent three years in German concentration camps.

“Computers are wonderful. But who has time to sit down?” he said.

“There’s so much to see here.”