Holocaust Documentation & Education Center Inc

The holocaust center seeks to combat prejudice in our multicultural, ethnically diversified community by educating the students and alerting them to the dangers of prejudice. Because our mission is to provide educational resources and information regarding the authentic memory of the holocaust, our student awareness days are a vehicle toward this end. The student awareness days are prejudice reduction symposia whereby 250-750 high school students at each program learn the dangers of bullying, racism, hatred, and bigotry through videos, lectures, and round table discussions with survivors of the holocaust. This unique program educates the future about the dangers of hatred, terror, and the threats against our democratic values and freedoms. By relating to the tragic, (see sched. O) personal stories of holocaust survivors, students begin to understand that no one is immune to the evil and discrimination bestowed upon them by others. High school students from local public, private, and parochial schools in miami dade, broward, palm beach, and monroe counties are invited to attend. Because of all the bullying that is taking place in the schools today and because character education and learning to respect one another is such an important part of what our schools teach, they work closely with us to ensure that as many of their students as possible attend the student awareness days. The center encourages students from all schools and backgrounds to participate.

Library our library is a major research destination for scholars, historians, and researchers to help document facts and refute those who seek to deny that it happened as well as an invaluable resource for students, teachers, professors, and the general public. The hdec collection includes: approximately 6,000 volumes of library books, several hundred dvds and vhs tapes in more than 15 languages, the largest self-produced oral history library collection of thousands of holocaust eyewitness testimonies. Our library is a major research destination for scholars, historians, and researchers to help document facts and refute those who seek to deny that it happened as well as an invaluable resource (see sched. O) for students, teachers, professors, and the general public. The hdec collection includes: approximately 6,000 volumes of library books, several hundred dvds and vhs tapes in more than 15 languages, the largest self- produced oral history library collection of thousands of holocaust eyewitness testimonies. In 2010, we began the digitization process of our 2,400 oral history interviews. In addition to the digitization our oral history library collection, we also have been working on digitizing all of the artifacts in our photograph, documentation and newspaper collections so that these important and unique items will be made available to the public for research and education. The center is currently engaged in development of an online digital library. Once completed, visitors will be able to search and browse through our oral history interviews, photographs and letters, from any computer around the globe. Hdec maintains the largest, self-produced, standardized oral history library collection consisting of approximately 2,400 interviews with holocaust survivors, rescuers, liberators and other eyewitnesses. Eyewitness testimonies are an invaluable resource for students, teachers and the general public. Approximately 60% of the interviewees are no longer alive. However their testimony and legacy live on to ensure that present and future generations will remember and will learn the universal lessons of the holocaust of what prejudice and hatred can lead to. These lessons are of vital importance for everyone, and especially for children and young adults. It is estimated that we lose ten percent of our survivor population each year. Soon younger generations will not have an opportunity to meet them, speak with them, and hear their stories.