Two Benefit Shows On Jewish Themes

Two photography shows opening in East Hampton in the coming week reflect the extremes of 20th-century Jewish experience, from the tragedy of the Holocaust to the triumph of some of Jewish descent who have risen to prominence.

One is a monthlong display of photographs at the East Hampton Day Care's Learning Center from the recently published 2,000-page volume "French Children of the Holocaust," compiled by Serge Klarsfeld, a Frenchman and renowned Nazi- hunter. The other is a photographic tribute to those of Jewish ancestry at East Hampton's Vered Gallery.

The events were not planned together, and their arrival at the same time is coincidental, but both are connected with the new Museum of Jewish Heritage now under construction in Manhattan. The Day Care exhibit was initiated locally and conceived as an educational project at the Learning Center. The exhibit's photos are housed at the museum, which coordinates their tours, and the Vered show is a museum benefit.

Jewish Icons

Both exhibits, their planners suggested, weave the human losses during a pivotal time in history with hope and rebirth.

The Vered exhibit, which begins with an opening reception Saturday at 6 p.m., sets European Jewish history as a preamble to modern American Jewish life. It is part of Frederick Brenner's "American Jewish" series.

Mr. Brenner's celebrity subjects, called "icons," include Elie Wiesel, Steven Spielberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg, and others, presented in gilded frames, presumably representing their success.

The portraits, however, are set against a backdrop of Manhattan and Ellis Island - more than a mere suggestion of their roots.

Benefit For Museum

The Vered show will benefit the Museum of Jewish Heritage through a preview and brunch at the gallery off Main Street from 10 a.m. to noon on Sunday at $100 per person. It will be followed by a reception at the Egypt Lane residence of Patti and Jeffrey Kenner from noon to 2 p.m. for which tickets are $250.

The $20 million museum, under construction in Lower Manhattan's Battery Park City, is set to open in early fall. One floor will be dedicated to Holocaust history, including 24 documentary tapes of survivor testimony, part of the $100 million Survivors of the Shoah project sponsored by Mr. Spielberg's Los Angeles-based Visual History Foundation.

The other two floors, said Ina Jones, the museum's communications director, tell of the "struggles, triumphs, and renewal of the Jewish people from the 1880s to the present."

The second exhibit, "French Children of the Holocaust," illustrates how images of the Holocaust tell the story as no words can. It is a heartrending reminder of what was forever lost, as documented in Mr. Klarsfeld's work of 20 years, "French Children of the Holocaust: A Memorial." The exhibit opens here next Thursday for a press preview and runs through Aug. 17.

More than 11,000 Jewish children were arrested in France at the beginning of World War II, deported, and murdered at Auschwitz. Among the fewer than 300 who survived was Ernest Nives of East Hampton and New York, the chairman of the exhibit committee and a longtime friend of the Klarsfelds.

For this exhibit, Mr. Nives chose 200, or about 10 percent, of the family pictures collected by Mr. Klarsfeld - those which "cover some of the most poignant stories," he said this week.

Key Evidence

Some, for example, show children from Izieu, a children's home near Lyons, which Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief known as the "butcher of Lyons," personally raided.

With pride, the Nazi murderer sent a telegram to Berlin telling of his deed. That telegram, said Mr. Nives, became a key piece of evidence in his 1987 trial as a war criminal in France after the Klarsfelds tracked him down in Bolivia in the 1970s.

All told, only 244 French Jewish children were smuggled into the U.S. with the help of the organization that ultimately became the United Jewish Appeal, Mr. Nives said; many of them went on to outstanding careers.

But the accomplishments of the few survivors point to "the [lost] potential of those the Germans killed," he added.

Traveling Show

The traveling exhibit, which is part of the Museum of Jewish Heritage's "Living Memorial to the Holocaust," has been on display at the New School for Social Research in New York, Yale University, and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Among the local residents who have helped bring it here are Howard Epstein, who translated the French version of Mr. Klarsfeld's book into English for publication by New York University Press, and Alida Brill and Steven H. Scheuer of East Hampton.

The exhibit's committee also includes Jean-Claude Baker, Candice Bergen, Billy Joel, Spalding Gray, Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, and more.

Ross At Reception

The Day Care Center, which will benefit from the event, will host an opening reception July 19 at 6 p.m., when New York's Lieut. Gov. Betsy McCaughey Ross will be the guest speaker. Tickets, through the Learning Center, are $50.

"French Children of the Holocaust" will be on view at the Learning Center on Gingerbread Lane.