All the Proof That’s Needed
The Huntington Beach City Council voted unanimously this month to help find permanent quarters for Mel Mermelstein’s Auschwitz Study Foundation Exhibit, currently housed in an industrial area. Mermelstein displays numerous artifacts and extensive documentation of the Holocaust that he’s collected over the past half-century, mostly from Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he was interned at 17, and where he lost his entire family. You can celebrate life in a land of freedom and plenty, and perhaps discuss history and the nature of good and evil, at Tosh’s Mediterranean Cuisine.
DAYTIME 1
Until the Auschwitz Study Foundation Exhibit finds a permanent home, groups of four or more can see it by appointment on the grounds of Mermelstein’s lumberyard.
Mermelstein is best known for a 1981 lawsuit against a Torrance-based revisionist group, the Institute for Historical Review, which offered $50,000 to anyone who could prove that Jews were gassed at Auschwitz. The court directed that Mermelstein be awarded the $50,000 plus $40,000 for pain and suffering, and a letter of apology. Attorney Gloria Allred represented Mermelstein; Leonard Nimoy played the local businessman in the TNT movie about the landmark case, “Never Forget.”
According to Mermelstein, he was the first former prisoner to visit Auschwitz from the United States after the war, and he said he was received by camp custodians “like a man from Mars.” He began returning regularly to Auschwitz to gather artifacts about 30 years ago.
With his collection, he fashions very moving decoupage pieces that express his recollections of the camps. He might, for instance, create a Star of David from barbed wire or buttons, or from utensils melted in the fires in the days following the camp’s liberation; he might make from similar objects a more abstract impression of a Nazi overseer holding a knife. “It tells the tale,” Mermelstein said.
He frames the pieces himself, and the setting resembles an art gallery. Many items are displayed in straightforward fashion, e.g., “Jood,” “Jude” and “Juif” (Jew) patches; copies of Goering’s “final solution” order; newspaper clippings of the day. Mermelstein can be seen in the photo of camp survivors that ran in The Times on April 29, 1945, following the Allied liberation of Auschwitz.
QUIET TIMES 2
The exhibit can make a deep and lasting impression; be prepared for an emotional wallop. In fact, you may need a break, a time for reflection after viewing. Huntington Central Park is a block away.
MEAL TIME 3
At Tosh’s, chef-owner Esin Denktash serves Turkish delights from her native city, Izmir, on the Mediterranean coast. Denktash is of Turkish-Arabic heritage; her husband, Erdem, is from Cyprus. The restaurant specializes in Turkish, Greek, Arabic and Armenian dishes. The menu displays flags of those countries as well as those of Israel.
For lunch, the Turkish Connection ($5.95) is a vegetarian plate featuring fried eggplant topped with yogurt and tomato herb sauces and served with two dolma (stuffed grape leaves) and two mucver (mildly spicy deep-fried zucchini patties). Among dinner specialties are Alexander kebabs, diced chicken, beef or lamb with the same sauces ($11 to $14). For dessert, consider burnt rice pudding ($3) and a demitasse of marvelously murky Turkish coffee.
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1) Auschwitz Study Foundation Exhibit
7422 Cedar Ave., (714) 848-1101.
Daily by appointment, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., for groups of four or more.
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2) Huntington Central Park
Between Slater and Talbert avenues, and Golden West and Gothard streets, (714) 536-5486.
Daily 5 a.m.-10 p.m.
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3) Tosh’s Mediterranean Cuisine
16871 Beach Blvd., (714) 842-3315.
11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday-Saturday.
Buses: OCTA bus No. 29 runs along Beach Boulevard. Bus No. 72 runs along Warner Avenue. Bus No. 25 runs along Golden West Street.
Parking: There is free street parking on Cedar Avenue and free parking in lots at Huntington Central Park and Tosh’s.