photos: 1)　Antoine　J. Melay of Boston, a　member of Jewish Latino Round Table of ADL, views the exhibit.

2) Auschwitz exhibit

3) Izzy Arbeiter shows the audience a photo of Auschwitz

4) Attendees　Anna Batchan of Boston, Rena Finder of Framingham and Janet Markman of Brookline

“If anybody leaves today saying ‘I don’t believe what happened in Auschwitz,’ I can tell them this: ‘One day in Auschwitz was a lifetime for each and every inmate,’” said Israel (Izzy) Arbeiter at the Nov. 2 reception for “Konzentrationslager Auschwitz,” an exhibit that began on　Oct. 22 in the Mass. State House’s Doric Hall.

“Upon arrival, you were told that the only way out was through the chimneys,” he continued. “That was our first welcome.” He told the crowd, which gathered in the hall for the exhibit reception, that Auschwitz was the largest of six death camps. “The plan was to exterminate the Jewish people, then the Gypsies, and then, through sterilization, the Slavic people – Poles, Czechs and Soviets,” he said. “After that, the area would be all German territory.” 1944, he said, was their “busiest time,” and described a scene where 10,000 people per day were murdered, with transports outside the camp waiting their turn.

Arbeiter outlined the camp’s history, detailing how an artillery unit had been stationed in the town of Oswiecim, but after leading Nazi commander Heinrich Himmler visited in 1940, it became a station to hold 10,000 prisoners of war. “First, Polish and Soviet POWs were sent there, and then in 1941, criminals from the Sachsenhausen camp,” he said. “These were murderers of Germans, and they were sent to Auschwitz to become supervisors.” Birkenau was created three miles away so that larger groups were brought in, including five million Jews, two million Poles and hundreds of thousands of prisoners from France, Hungary, Romania, , and elsewhere.

“Over four million people were murdered in Auschwitz,” said Arbeiter. “Who carried out the killing? Ordinary people. Not Himmler or Nazi officials. It was people educated at the highest universities in Germany – people educated to be healers – doctors and other professionals.”

It defies explanation, he said: “How can you explain? You had to have been there, and even then....” His voice trailed off as he looked toward the exhibit. “A picture means a thousand words, and that may be true, but not in this case.”

Arbeiter told the audience about one area, between Bloc 10 and 11. “At the end of a corridor, there were slanted cellars called bunkers, and the windows were covered with sand. People were marked with a blue pen: Number 2, for extermination.” He said four people were put in small compartments for a day or two, then taken out to be shot in the back of their necks. “The blood would be removed from the sand, and the next people were taken there. Anyone who went beyond that gate never came back.” He then showed photos to the assembled. “This was my barrack. This was the delousing area. This was the crematorium. This is where I cleaned and emptied the toilets.”

By this time, people believed what had happened at Auschwitz.

“I cannot take more than two or three panels of the exhibit at a time before I become overemotional,” said　Marek　Lesniewski-Laas, Honorary　Consul　of　Poland　in　Boston, who hosted, organized and set up the event. He acknowledged the survivors in the audience, especially prisoner Number 1818651, Arbeiter. “Through looking at violence we become desensitized – and it is my hope that through this exhibit, we will become sensitized,” he said.

Dr. Andrzej Pronczuk, President of the Polish Cultural Foundation, a nonprofit public charity established in 1998 that promotes Polish culture and history, said that the plan was to borrow the exhibit from　the　Auschwitz-Birkenau State　Museum. “But that could only have been for a short time,” he explained, “because visitors to Auschwitz would not be able to see it while it was on loan.” The solution, he said, was to make an exact, electronic copy, which they then printed and mounted. A contract was signed to show it for five years in the U.S. “We only want to show it in its entirety,” he said, “in libraries, universities and other public sites.” He hopes to show it in New York and Washington, in conjunction with some type of Holocaust symposium, and invited the audience to make suggestions.

Sponsors included the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the New England Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Consulate General of Israel, the Consulate of the Republic of Poland, and State Senator Richard T. Moore.

“This is a very necessary action to keep memories alive and people aware,” said Rep. Alice Wolf, D-Cambridge, who at five years of age was a refugee from Austria. “My grandmother died in Auschwitz,” she said. “My parents and I barely got out.” Wolf is a sponsor of　Cambridge’s Annual Commemoration of the Holocaust, which she helped start in 1989 when she was Vice Mayor.

“This exhibit has very deep personal significance for me,” said Lester Fagen, a Partner at Cooley, LLP’s Boston office, who said that although his mother was saved by Oscar Schindler, her mother and sister did not survive Auschwitz. “The stories of my mother and grandmother’s three weeks there, and three years at other camps, invaded my dinner table growing up,” he said. He said that indeed, we needed another event in Boston to remind us of what happened there, even in a time replete with other stressors. The knowledge of suffering, he said, does not create an environment for wrongdoing. “While we all want to believe in the fundamental goodness of human nature, the reminders of these deviations will lead us to kinder and more meaningful lives, if we do not turn away," he said.

“The scars are deep, and the pain extends from generation to generation,” said　Jeffrey S. Robbins of　Mintz Levin, who in September was appointed Regional Board Chair of　the　Anti-Defamation League　for New England. He spoke about his wife, who immigrated from Poland in 1969 amid what he termed an official wave of anti-Semitism. “This exhibit reflects the honor, the responsibility and the rectitude of the governments of Germany and Poland,” he said. He spoke of the painful and permanent reminders of the evil –" those who ordered it, those who carried it out, and those who stood idly by," and cited “a sobering wave of anti-Semitism” in the present day, giving an example of an October incident where the newly-elected President Morsi of Egypt was seen mouthing the word “Amen” after an Egyptian preacher asked Allah to destroy the Jews.

“When I saw this exhibit, my blood froze,” said Rolfe Schutte, Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany. “Even for someone like me, who lived in Israel and visited Yad Vashem.” He said the exhibit reminds all viewers of the two most horrific crimes committed by Germany – the war, and the attempted extermination of European Jewry. “Carried out on Polish soil by Germans, Auschwitz is a symbol of shame,” he said. “You can only live with the burden of the past when you are able to speak openly about guilt, and to be thoroughly self-critical,” he said, acknowledging that the survivors in the crowd were the only ones who could give firsthand knowledge. He noted the importance of having students from the German International School in Boston in the audience.

Daniel Levenson, Director of Public Affairs at the Consulate General of Israel to New England, said that the lessons of Auschwitz are for everyone. “Genocide can happen anywhere at any time,” he said, “and we have a responsibility to work together.”

The reception had been postponed from Monday due to Hurricane Sandy. “I arranged for a bus, called 50 people, disinvited them, and then called and re-invited them,” said the German Consulate’s Monika Dane, who for many years has both produced events to honor survivors, and helped them with reparations and other issues. But attendance was robust, and included Schindler’s List member Rena Finder and survivors Abraham Rogozinsky, Rosian Zerner and Janet Applefield, and Auschwitz survivors John Saunders (who carried his war documentation with him), Janet Markman, and Stephan Ross.

“I will be going on my fifth ‘March of the Living’ in April,” said Irving Kempner of Sharon, who is a co-Chair of the Israel Arbeiter Gallery of Tolerance and Understanding at the Kehillah Schechter Academy in Norwood. Kempner’s mother was in Auschwitz, and this year, the trip will also include the　Mauthausen　camp in Austria, where his father was imprisoned, as well as Prague.

“To a child of survivors, Auschwitz and all it stands for is an ever-present existence," said Fagen.

“It has been 68 years since I was liberated, and it is very seldom that Auschwitz is not in my mind,” said Arbeiter in his speech. “I ask myself, ‘Is it true? Did it really happen? Were there people who could commit such atrocities? Men like Rudolf Hess, who had his wife and children live elsewhere, who played with his children at night, while during the day, he was murdering little children?”