Mermelstein artifact, art collection finds home at Newport Beach Chabad Center
(Poster credit: Auschwitz Study Foundation)
Mel Mermelstein was 17 when he was deported, with his parents, two sisters and brother, from his hometown in present-day Hungary to Auschwitz in May, 1944.
Before his father died in an Auschwitz sub-camp, Mel promised his father he would become an outspoken witness to the atrocities inflicted upon the Jewish people.
By the time Mermelstein was liberated from the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp in April, 1945, he was the only survivor of his immediate family.
Over the next seven decades, he kept his promise to his father.
Mermelstein immigrated to the United States in 1946, settling in New York before moving to California, where he founded a business that produced wooden pallets.
In 1967, he began visiting the sites of multiple death camps, collecting artifacts: “bullet casings, bone fragments, remnants of barbed wire and the structures they surrounded,” the Los Angeles Times reported on Feb. 7. He created art pieces from some of the everyday objects and artifacts.
In time, that collection, plus items he had kept over the years, grew to more than 700 pieces. The collection was displayed in a 1,600-square-foot shipping container at Ideal Pallet System Inc. in Huntington Beach. Students took field trips to the lumberyard to observe firsthand the souvenirs of genocide. The lumberyard and display was closed to visitors in 2018.
Last August, Mermelstein’s daughter Edie, government officials and Chabad Jewish Center leaders attended an opening ceremony at the center in Newport Beach in what they hope will become an Orange County Holocaust Education Center.
In an interview with the Times, Rabbi Reuven Mintz said, “He equipped himself with these tools of darkness, utilized to murder millions of people, and he turned these tools of darkness into tools of light.”
The Chabad Center for Jewish Life in Newport Beach said in a statement, “The museum will serve to educate tens of thousands of students across Orange County, and inspire a new generation to greater tolerance, moral courage, and personal integrity.”
The current exhibit, which is open to groups with reservations, features about 70 pieces. The center plans to rotate items on display in the coming months so the visiting public can see the entire collection.
Mermelstein died Jan. 28 at his home in Long Beach. His daughter Edie said the cause of death was complications of COVID-19 He was 95.
“We will redouble our efforts, now that Mel has passed on and given his torch to us, his family and the community,” Mintz told the Times.
The new facility is located at 2240 University Drive, Newport Beach. For more information, visit jewishnewport.com or call (949) 721-9800.