‘MANY MORE STORIES’
Addition with local ties planned as reminder of Holocaust
Just five years after it opened in Mohnton, the Berks Military History Museum is already outgrowing its building.
So the nonprofit facility is moving forward with plans to add a building next door that will double the size of the existing museum and provide two floors of exhibits on the Holocaust, much of it containing local connections.
“We have so many more things that can be displayed and so many more stories that we can tell, but we need more space,” said state Rep. Mark Gillen of Robeson Township, the museum’s founder and president.
The new building will be placed on the same lot at 198 E. Wyomissing Ave. and will be connected by a corridor to the existing building.
That will expand the museum to 9,000 square feet from 4,500 square feet.
You cannot tell the story of America’s military history without explaining the Holocaust, Gillen said, and that’s what the new building will do.
In his conversations with local education officials he’s received a lot of encouragement, he said.
“Educators have told us there is a need for us to do this,” he said. “The community is excited about it.”
Gillen plans to have displays and artifacts detailing the period from the rise of Hitler in the 1930s through the liberation of concentration camps and the Nuremberg Trials, with much of the material having a Berks or Pennsylvania link.
He hopes more in Berks with family connections to the Holocaust will come forward to share those stories.
“We hope to hear more about what happened to them,” he said.
The museum is free, with hours each Saturday and by appointment for groups or field trips, and is run by volunteers, which Gillen said it will need more of.
“To sustain something like this we’re going to need some help,” he said.
The timetable for the project is still being worked out, but Gillen hopes construction can start early in 2023 and be completed by the end of next year.
Construction costs are expected to be around $1.7 million, said Richard “Dick” Ehst, the retired Customers Bank CEO who is leading the capital campaign.
So far it’s going well, he said, but there is more money to raise.
Important project
To explain the project’s importance to potential donors, Ehst speaks about being 15 when he visited Dachau, the memorial site near Munich, Germany, where the Nazi’s first concentration camp operated during World War II.
There thousands of Jews and those from other groups targeted by Adolf Hitler were executed or died of malnutrition, disease or overwork, and Ehst’s visit left a permanent impression on him.
He has since been to every major Holocaust museum in the world, and is thankful there is the ambition locally to have a Holocaust exhibit, which he said is especially important for students.
“We have to make sure that our youngsters are aware of what happened so that it will never, ever be forgotten,” he said. “I want them to think, ‘My God, I hope that never happens again.’ “
He said the addition will also be a memorial to those whose families suffered terribly during the Holocaust, which killed approximately 6 million people.
While the price of building materials has risen dramatically recently, Ehst hopes those cost increases can be offset by donations of labor and materials from local companies.
“I think the building community will get behind this,” he said.
The architect is Olsen Design Group of Bern Township, which has designed numerous high-profile buildings in Berks, including the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts and the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel in downtown Reading.
Necessary reminder
Working with Gillen has been the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center in Philadelphia, which plans to place a number of its donated artifacts and books on permanent loan to the Berks museum.
The details of what will be displayed here are still being figured out, but Chuck Feldman, president of the Philadelphia museum, said they will include personal items from Holocaust victims and survivors.
“It’s going to be remarkable stuff,” he said.
Berks will be fortunate to have such a display to demonstrate the damage that unbridled state-sponsored hatred can inflict, Feldman said.
Among the local companies donating toward the project is Penske Transportation Solutions in Reading, which already had been a museum supporter, said spokesman Michael Duff.
The Holocaust made clear the harm that evil people are capable of, and there is more evidence of that today through the persecution of groups in Ukraine and China, he said.
The museum will help remind people of that important lesson, he said.
“We’re proud to be a part of it,” he said, “and hopefully help make the world a better place.”
Another supporter of the project is Victor Hammel of Wyomissing, who last year with his wife, Dena, committed $450,000 to Penn State’s Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Education Initiative.
That partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Education and several state and national entities provides training and resources to help K-12 educators across the state teach their students about a wide range of difficult topics, including the Holocaust and other genocides.
The topic is personal for Hammel, as his father fled Germany in 1937 with other family members when they saw what terrible things were happening, but some of his family stayed behind and perished, he said.
The expansion of the military history museum will provide another way for local teachers to help students understand the Holocaust and human rights in general and will help raise awareness among adults, he said.
When Hammel moved to Berks in the early 1970s there were Holocaust remembrance events here that drew 30 or 40 survivors, and while that number is now down to only a few, those survivors are still a firsthand connection to that tragic period, he said.
“I think it’s vital that we all learn this history to avoid repeating it,” he said.
‘Amazing landmark’
Berks County Veterans Affairs Director Ken Lebron is excited for the expansion, and said the museum is already well-worth visiting.
“It has a stunning display, and it’s immersive. It’s a great experience,” he said. “It’s an amazing landmark for our community.”
The museum is also comprehensive, he said, detailing generations who served, including many who have passed on.
“It’s important that their legacy continue in their absence,” he said.
Lebron thanked the museum’s donors and supporters, as well as Gillen and its volunteers.
“They are selfless, caring and patriotic,” he said.
Bill McKay, Gov. Mifflin School District superintendent, said he looks forward to having students take field trips to the museum as part of the district’s effort to provide more education outside of the schools’ walls.
He envisions high school and middle school students visiting as part of their history, social studies, world cultures and English curriculums, as well as students taking the high school’s military history class.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity to broaden our total experience learning format,” he said. “Having a resource like this right here will be perfect.”