Remember Us The Holocaust (RUTH) occupies a somewhat small room in downtown San Diego’s central library. But the history it represents is vast: the history of a dark time, reminders of an incomprehensibly profound evil one group of humans visited upon another, preserved in a collection of artifacts that tells the story in a vivid, visceral way — of those who died and those who lived through the Holocaust.
RUTH is more than just an acronym for this exhibit.
“It’s named after my mother Ruth Goldschmied,” said Sandra Scheller, the founder and president of RUTH.
Before RUTH, Scheller and her late mother educated people about the period from 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power, through 1945, when the Allies defeated Nazi Germany.
“My mother and I were speaking all the time in the schools. We were going to this school, that school, this high school, this elementary school, doing talks,” Scheller said.
In 2018, she broadened her reach to the world stage — from right here in San Diego.
“I put a proposal together to do art from the Holocaust to Comic-Con, and we’ve been there now for eight years. Can you imagine? From 2018 until this last year, I have had a panel at Comic-Con called 'Art from the Holocaust,'” said Scheller.
Before her mother died, Scheller said they talked about establishing a museum. After her passing, she did the next best thing, arranging an exhibit at the Chula Vista Library.
Once that exhibit ended, she moved it to the library in Rancho San Diego, then a library in La Jolla, and now downtown San Diego’s central library.
KPBS interviewed Scheller earlier this month when she and her colleagues were setting things up. We watched as artifacts were carefully placed — a sign from a shop window bearing the words “Juden sind hier unerwünscht,” which means “Jews are unwanted here.”
There's also yellow star of David with the word “Jew” sewn onto a jacket; Jews were forced to wear them before the concentration camps opened.
A pair of shoes. Scheller said the size you got was the size you got, whether they fit or not.
And something truly horrific — a garment with a white X painted on the back, a target for the Nazis to shoot at if prisoners tried to escape.
All around are pictures: the faces of innocent people caught in the moment of madness, some seen for a second looking at the photographer—a gaze of confusion, sadness, utter grief. Those pictures were taken in concentration camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau.
But also all around, the faces of survivors. Life-size cutouts are spread throughout the room showing those who lived to tell the tale, those dedicated to making sure this history never repeats itself.
One of those cutouts depicts 98-year-old Simon Spiegelman, a San Diego County resident and Holocaust survivor. Scheller interviewed him recently, and he had this message for young people: "It’s very important not to believe the Holocaust deniers and to believe that this (the Holocaust) happened, it actually happened and that it can’t happen anywhere at any time again. And it’s up to you, the young generation, to prevent it from happening,” Spiegelman said.
A message years ago from another survivor propelled Scheller to bring RUTH to life.
“Her name was Gita. And she started crying and she said, 'The only way that I can see my family is when I close my eyes at night because I don't even have a photo. I'm jealous of what you have,’” Scheller said. ”So I went to the other Holocaust survivors, and I made a promise to them. 'If I ever do this again, I will make sure that I will incorporate all the Holocaust survivors that I meet.'"
And so she has. The survivors and those left behind — and the items that help tell the tale — all in the Central Library for the next two years.
After that, Scheller hopes they have a permanent location so San Diego can have its own Holocaust museum.
