Honoring the ‘righteous’ with new exhibit

The Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County has unveiled a striking new light fixture that serves as both a functional addition and a profound exhibit.
The fixture features four large panels, each five feet long, displaying the faces of Raoul Wallenberg, Oskar Schindler, Irena Sendler, and André Trocmé. Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, is renowned for his efforts in rescuing tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest during World War II. Schindler, a German business owner, famously saved over a thousand Jewish lives, an act immortalized in the 1993 motion picture “Schindler’s List.” Sendler, a Polish nurse, heroically smuggled Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland, saving them from certain death. Trocmé, a French Protestant pastor, inspired his congregation to shelter Jewish refugees, offering them sanctuary during the Holocaust.
The black-and-white photographs of these four individuals, recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem, are displayed prominently on the panels.
This installation, which replaces an outdated and hazardous chandelier, transforms the grand staircase of the museum into a moving tribute to those who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. The fixture, inspired by a design from the Louvre Museum in Paris, was conceived and brought to life by Bernie Furshpan, the museum’s marketing director and his wife Joanne who also oversaw the installation. Both personally installed the panels at the museum’s front staircase using a scissor lift.
“We realized that what we were doing was not only putting up a fixture, but it was an exhibit, it makes you think about what they’ve done and what you can do is an upstander today,” Furshpan said. “It’s a metaphor, because it illuminates the path up, and as you walk up, you’re elevated to higher moral grounds.”
Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, is credited with rescuing tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest, including Agota Adler, who was 7 years old when she was saved. Now 88 and living in Great Neck, Adler attended the unveiling of the light fixture on Aug. 7, which features Wallenberg’s image alongside those of the other honorees.
The new exhibit comes at a time when hate crimes are on the rise. New York defines a hate crime as one that targets a person, group, or property due to bias against characteristics such as race, religion, or sexual orientation. According to the latest New York State data, police departments in Nassau County reported 61 hate crimes in 2022, up from 28 the year before.