HALLOWED GROUND AT HOLOCAUST MUSEUM

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 7, 1993                   TAG: 9303070256
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: F-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By HARRY F. ROSENTHAL
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
HALLOWED GROUND AT HOLOCAUST MUSEUM
When an eternal flame is installed at the soon-to-open Holocaust Museum, it will rest on soil from 39 "places of martyrdom," where victims of Nazi savagery died.
The soil, brought in small urns to the museum, came mostly from concentration camps, but also from Normandy to commemorate the Americans who died in the war for freedom
"Each particle of soil was collected from a place of unspeakable human tragedy," said Harvey M. Meyerhoff, chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. "This Hall of Remembrance, this national memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, is not complete without the soil which we bury today."
As the names of death camps were intoned, the holocaust survivors came forward one by one, holding small jars of soil as if they were made of eggshells. They then poured the dirt into the base on which the eternal flame will stand.
The places of origin were sadly familiar: Auschwitz-Birkenau . . . Babi Yar . . . Bergen-Belsen . . . Buchenwald . . . Dachau . . . Kovno . . . Lidice . . . Sobibor . . . Treblinka.
Meyerhoff took part in the collection of soil in Lithuania.
"As we dug the spade into the ground in those desolate locations," he said, "the cries on the innocent victims echoed in our ears."
The dirt was gathered during the last nine months, not only from concentration camp sites, but also from the beaches of Normandy and from American military cemeter-ies.
"So when a visitor comes to pay homage to the victims of Nazi brutality, he will pay tribute and express his eternal gratitude to those who died to put an end to the Nazi evil," said Miles Lerman, chairman of international relations of the memorial council.
The Holocaust Museum, scheduled to open in April, is located near the Washington Monument and will have 265,000 square feet of floor space on five levels above ground and two levels below.
"It is our main objective to sensitize the museum visitor to the fact that decent society cannot stand by idly when atrocities take place," said Lerman.
"Because it is here where they will come to understand that when immigrant workers are being attacked in Germany, or when neo-Nazis are once again peddling their venom of hate, when we see that murder and mass rape becomes a national purpose committed in the name of `ethnic cleansing' that this must become our personal concern," he said.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB