Holocaust center gets big boost
N.Y. woman adds $500,000 for memorial
Copyright © 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
AUGUSTA — A proposal to build a Holocaust education center and memorial on the University of Maine at Augusta campus received a major boost recently from the widow of a man who survived the Holocaust in hiding as an orphaned child.
Phyllis Jalbert has given $500,000 to help the Holocaust Human Rights Center of Maine create the proposed Education Resource Center. Jalbert's late husband, Michael Klahr, survived World War II in hiding on a farm near Grenoble, France, after his mother was deported and his father was shot by Nazis in Voiron, France,
The gift puts organizers well on their way to raising $1.5 million to create the center, proposed to be an addition to the Bennett Katz Library on the UMA campus.
"It was so overwhelming, I just started to cry," Sharon Nichols, executive director of the Holocaust Human Rights Center of Maine, said of learning of Jalbert's gift.
Nichols said about $900,000 has been raised for the project already, and fund raising hasn't even officially begun yet.
The proposed 5,500-to-6,000-square-foot addition would include a permanent exhibit depicting the history of the Holocaust, including photographs of survivors, classroom space for seminars, workshops and lectures that UMA also could use; a research room; and office space for the Holocaust Human Rights Center of Maine, which is currently based at Nichols' home.
Jalbert, who owns a real estate management firm in Brooklyn, N.Y., while also owning the Jalbert Sporting Camps in the Allagash, said her husband loved Maine, and she sees the center as a place to honor him while also promoting human rights. Jalbert was born in Eagle Lake and grew up in Fort Kent, which is where she first met now-UMA President Charles Lyons.
"It feels so right to do this," Jalbert, 57, said from her office in Brooklyn. "I wanted to do something meaningful in memory of my husband. It resonated for me."
The center, Nichols noted, would be built entirely with privately raised money. UMA's only obligation would be to maintain the building, which a fact sheet for the project estimates would cost about $30,000 annually.
Lyons said he hopes to seek approval for the project from the University of Maine System Board of Trustees at their September meeting. He said he sees the education center, with its focus on civil rights education, as very much in line with UMA's mission.
"This is an education center, not just a museum," Lyons said. "It appeals to everything the university should be. This is the best of all worlds. At a time when public resources are so stretched, when you have a public-private opportunity like this, you ought to seize it."
The Holocaust Human Rights Center of Maine teaches Maine students and their teachers about the Holocaust and issues of human rights. The center, Nichols said, depends on Holocaust survivors to share their experiences with school audiences. But those survivors are aging, and Nichols believes it is important to create a resource center to collect their stories.
"I met with some Holocaust survivors and told them about what we're planning," Nichols said. "And one of them asked, 'Do you think it will be done before I die?' That's why I'm really pushing for this. I get such strength from Holocaust survivors. ... We need to do this while they're still alive."
She hopes to have enough money raised to break ground next year.
Nichols said the center will be called the Michael Klahr Education Center. Lyons noted, however, that the University System Board of Trustees would likely have to make the final decision on the name of the center.
Jalbert said she believes Klahr would be pleased to be associated with a human rights education center.
"I think he'd be very happy about it," Jalbert said of her late husband. "Although he was very understated. He was the kind of guy who would never spend this kind of money on himself. He lived a very simple life."
After the war, Klahr came to the United States, at the age of 9, and lived with his uncle in New York. He became a successful real estate developer in New York and raised a family. He died of cancer in 1998.
Keith Edwards — 621-5647
kedwards@centralmaine.com