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By LESLIE GAGLIA
As a high school student in New York City fifty years ago, Stuart
Elenko was not much aware of the atrocities of the Holocaust. That all
changed when he got an after-school job at a Jewish agency in 1947.
"I experienced first-hand listening to Holocaust survivors tell
their stories," he remembers. "It couldn't have had a stronger effect."
Decades later, Mr. Elenko is one of the country's leading
authorities on the Holocaust, and singlehandedly created the Holocaust
Museum and Studies Center at the Bronx High School of Science. The trove
of Nazi-era artifacts tucked into one corner of the school's library is
one of the oldest collections in the country, a precursor to larger
Holocaust museums that have developed around the nation.
Last week, local elected officials, students, teachers and community
leaders gathered in the center to give Mr. Elenko his due, renaming the
museum's collection of artifacts the Stuart S. Elenko Collection after
its founder. Speakers recognized his lifelong dedication and
persistence, as well as his self-described "big mouth" and dogged
personality.
"We are here to honor a truly great man," said Bronx Science
Principal Stanley Blumenstein.
Mr. Elenko came to Bronx Science in 1964 as a social studies
teacher. In 1977, he started the first class devoted exclusively to the
Nazi slaughter of Europe's Jews.
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He
founded the Holocaust Center in 1978 with a $2,900 grant from the New
York State legislature. As the center grew, so did its economic needs.
Much of the funding was spent on purchasing artifacts and compiling and
distributing educational materials, including a guide put together by
students published in 1991 following a heart attack.
Over the years, Mr. Elenko has worked largely to maintain funds for
the museum, and found one of his first and most ardent supporters in
Councilwoman June Eisland.
Ms. Eisland first interacted with Mr. Elenko as a Bronx Science
parent and has since used her political clout to help the museum. She
has earmarked city funding for the project year after year, so that the
center could keep going for te 20 years that is has existed.
She reminisced about the early days, when Mr. Elenko gathered
artifacts in his apartment, even before he opened the center. "He has a
closet that magically expanded when he opened it," she said, of the
burgeoning collection.
Mr. Elenko leaves no stone unturned when it comes to finding
artifacts for his museum, many of which are extremely rare. The long
list includes A Jewish star from Berlin made out of yellow cloth, a
Torah cover made in secret by Jewish prisoners at the Bergen-Belsen
concentration camp and "The Eternal Jew," a 1937 poster which was used
my the Nazis for anti-Semitic propaganda.
"The collection is you and always has been," wrote Holocaust
survivor and activist Elie Wiesel, in a letter that Mr. Elenko keeps in
a frame on his desk. |
Mr.
Elenko hopes the effects of the center are reflected in the student
body. Most of the teens who volunteer there aren't even Jewish, said Mr.
Elenko, and they tend to become human rights activists afterwards
One student who worked there even had a relative who was in the
Waffen S.S., while another young volunteer was relater to a guard at
Birkenau concentration camp. These teens, ashamed and embarrassed,
actually apologized to him for their relatives' roles in the Holocaust,
said Mr. Elenko, his voice filled with emotion.
Along with documenting the Holocaust, the center decries racism in
general. One if the artifacts is a 1920s Ku Klux Klan hood. The center
also recognizes the "Righteous Gentiles" who saved Jews' lives during
the Holocaust.
In recent years, however, funding for the center has dwindled,
plunging from the $36,000 that Mr. Elenko estimates the center needs to
operate at full strength to $10,000. Mr. Elenko fears that without
consistent financial support, the center might be forced to close.
But the man with the "tact of a rollercoaster," as he says, will
remain dedicated to the museum as long as he possibly can.
"His first love has always been this museum," said William Donat, a
Warsaw Ghetto survivor, 1956 Bronx Science graduate and board member of
the Holocaust Center. "Stuart was constantly on the alert to gain
support for this wonderful project of his" |
