War Museum

called attention to the pain and sacrifice endured by Berks County families,

“We must make sure,” he told a group of about 50, “that this never happens again.”

Gallery of pain

In a gallery where the gaunt faces of Jews in Auschwitz stare blankly from World War II photos, Troy Fasig is most passionate about three tiny cloth dolls.

“They’re wearing the Star of David,” Fasig of Exeter Township said. “They once belonged to children in the Warsaw Jewish ghetto.”

The owners of those dolls, Fasig said, were among 1.2 million Jewish and 500,000 non-Jewish children who died during the Holocaust.

Fasig, a veteran collector of military artifacts, was instrumental in assembling the Holocaust exhibit at the museum.

Scouring the world via the internet, he assembled a collection that ranges from a uniform worn by a concentration camp inmate who died on Christmas Eve 1944 to uniforms worn by Jewish freedom fighters in Israel.

Much of the collection came from Daniel DeVarennes, a Canadian author of “A Glimpse of Evil,” a Holocaust history.

Fasig said working on the Holocaust collection became as much a passion as a historical endeavor.

Drawing on a quote by the philosopher George Santayana, Fasig said, “If you don’t remember history, you’re condemned to repeat it.”

Michael Perkins of Douglassville has more than a passing interest in the Holocaust.

His mother, Patricia Perkins, was part of a British Army delegation that liberated the camp at BergenBelsen in April 1945. She ran a canteen for inmates and soldiers during the liberation and his father, Charles Perkins, served with a British peacekeeping force in Palestine.

“This is something that should have never happened,” said Perkins, 74, an Army veteran who toured the Holocaust exhibit. “And, it should never happen again.”

His wife, Kathie, has read many books on the Holocaust. But seeing the artifacts brought a sense of realism that can’t be found in books.

“This exhibit gives us a connection to the Holocaust,” she said. “It’s something to help us care about it.”