The Holocaust Museum & Cohen Education Center in Naples doesn’t scream out “visit me, visit me” but maybe it should.
It is a one-of-a-kind place in Naples with its own history to make sure history isn’t forgotten.
What started as a middle school classroom project in 1997 blossomed into a fully-fledged museum. Today it has more than 1,000 artifacts and original photographs depicting the rise of Nazism to the Allied Liberation and Nuremberg Trials in 1946.
More:Things to do: This museum in Collier County lets you peek back in time as history was made
There are educational programs for students of all ages; special exhibits, films and lectures with special guests.
Many of the artifacts have been donated or permanently loaned by local Holocaust survivors and liberators, and from others before and after World War II.
A mind-boggling exhibit is a 10-ton Holocaust-era railway boxcar that Jack Nortman, a museum board member emeritus, donated as part of the museum’s permanent collection.
Built in 1919, the boxcar was in the German railway system during World War II and used to carry prisoners, troops, and supplies.
In July, the museum added a flag made by survivors of the Mittelbau-Dora (Nordhausen-Dora) concentration camp in central Germany to its permanent collection.
In terms of education, it provides multiple lessons for fifth grade, eighth grade, and high school students in Southwest Florida with field trips to the museum, survivor talks, popup exhibits and more, To date 250,000 students and teachers have been impacted.
How the museum got its start
Students at Golden Gate Middle School in the 1997 were learning about one of the darkest eras in world history – the genocide of European Jewish people from 1933 to 1945 at the end of WW II.
More:Best car museum to wild Florida: 5 bucket list things to do this season in Collier County
The students wrote to Holocaust survivors and the response was overwhelming with letters, photographs and artifacts.
They decided to create an exhibit, called “Out of the Ashes,” to teach others what they’d learned so history wouldn’t be forgotten. They built their exhibit in an empty classroom at their school with a $1,200 grant from the Jewish Federation of Collier County.
The exhibit traveled to several other local schools and the Collier County Museum in East Naples until it landed at Florida Gulf Coast University in Estero. From there, it ended up in storage until a local group decided to resurrect the exhibit.
The early days
In 2001, the student exhibit was transformed into a nonprofit museum and educational center. Its mission is to teach the lessons of the Holocaust to inspire action against bigotry, hatred and violence, and to promote mutual respect.
A 1,200 square-foot storefront in the Tanglewood Marketplace on U.S. 41 in North Naples was the first museum location with the Jewish Foundation paying rent and overseeing an initial fundraising to open to the public.
The museum moved to Sandalwood Square Plaza off U.S. 41 before a major fundraising project and move in 2019 to its current and permanent home at 975 Imperial Golf Course Blvd.
For more information call 239-263-9200 or visit the museum’s website at www.hmcec.org.