Torched Holocaust museum reopens

TERRE HAUTE -- A Holocaust museum gutted by a November 2003 arson fire reopened Sunday in an expanded space that includes displays of books and photos charred by the still-unsolved arson.\nAbout 500 people attended Sunday afternoon's reopening of the new museum. The 3,700-square-foot building's entrance is flanked by six slender windows that resemble candles and represent the estimated 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.\nHolocaust survivor Eva Kor in 1995 opened the original CANDLES museum, which stands for Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Experiments Survivors.\n"I'm asking you a special favor, to remember today as a shining example of triumph over evil," Kor said to the crowd.\nAs a child, Kor, 71, and her identical twin sister, Miriam, were prisoners in Poland's Auschwitz concentration camp and were subjected to Josef Mengele's experiments on twins.\nThe museum, which Kor opened in hopes of teaching Midwesterners about the horrors of the Holocaust, saw thousands of schoolchildren visit in the following years.\nOn Nov. 18, 2003, the museum was gutted by an arsonist who apparently spray-painted "Remember Timmy McVeigh" on the outside wall next to the window that was smashed.\n"It happened because of hatred and prejudice," Kor said.\nMcVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber who shared sympathies with white supremacists, was executed at a federal prison outside Terre Haute in 2001.\nThe fire is still under investigation by Terre Haute police and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said city police chief George Ralston.\nDonations of nearly $300,000 allowed Kor to rebuild.\nThe original museum occupied part of the same building and was a "modest museum," where posters were pinned to the wall, Kor said.\nPush pins were no longer tacked to the walls of the new building, which includes a dramatic entryway with a vaulted ceiling, a library room, offices and a display room, she said.\nThe new museum features 11 elongated windows, expanding the memorial to embrace not only Mengele's lab experiment victims but also the other groups persecuted and murdered by Nazis in concentration camps during their 12-year reign in Germany. It includes Jews and other religious groups, gypsies, the physically and mentally handicapped, homosexuals and political opponents, Kor said.\nThe new museum holds displays, memorials and local students' artwork commemorating the Nazis' 11 million victims.\nSurvivors of Nazi crimes, liberated from the camps 60 years ago, must forgive to free themselves from the tragedy, Kor said.\n"Physically, they were set free. Emotionally, they're still imprisoned," she said. "It's for the victim to reclaim their life"