Located in a colonial-era house in Guatemala City, Guatemala, the Museo del Holocausto will be the first Holocaust museum in Central America. When it opens officially, in early 2017, the museum’s permanent collection will focus on the “Holocaust by Bullets.”
Between 1941 and 1944, more than 2 million Jews were massacred when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. Because of the region’s inadequate railway systems the Nazis were unable to easily transport the Jews to the camps. Instead, mobile execution units gathered, shot and killed the Jews outside their homes. Soviet villages became execution sites and local villagers became executioners and witnesses.
After the executions, the Nazis buried their victims in mass ditches and continued on to another village. With bodies and bullets beneath the ground, the perpetrators left behind little indication of what had taken place. Some of the murderers were tried in Nuremberg, some in the West and East Germany, but many remain unaware of the magnitude of those mass executions.
Israeli Artist Mira Maylor’s exhibit “Memories of the Holocaust through Art” debuted at the Guatemala Holocaust Museum in November, and will be on display through February 28, 2017. Maylor’s take on memory is displayed in a series of 18 pieces. Israeli Ambassador to Guatemala Moshe Bachar spoke at the show’s opening and the Israeli Embassy in Guatemala supported the exhibition.