The Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County (HMTC) is a Holocaust memorial, a museum and a tolerance center in Glen Cove, on the

North Shore of Long Island The North Shore of Long Island is the area along the northern coast of New York's Long Island bordering Long Island Sound. Known for its extreme wealth and lavish estates, the North Shore exploded into affluence at the turn of the 20th centur ...

New York State New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...

. The museum and tolerance center is situated within the original Gold Coast Mansion "Welwyn", in what is now

Welwyn Preserve County Park Welwyn Preserve County Park is a public nature reserve in Glen Cove, on the North Shore of Long Island in New York State. Welwyn Preserve was originally Welwyn Estate, the estate of the industrialist Harold I. Pratt. The main house, Welwyn, wa ...

. The memorial also includes the adjoining garden, which was originally designed by the

Olmsted Brothers The Olmsted Brothers company was a landscape architectural firm in the United States, established in 1898 by brothers John Charles Olmsted (1852–1920) and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. (1870–1957), sons of the landscape architect Frederick Law ...

, the influential American landscape architectural firm. As of 2014, the museum is open on Mondays to Fridays from 10:00 am to 4:30 pm, and on Saturdays and Sundays from 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm."Hiking Welwyn Preserve"
Dr. Patrick Cooney, NY-NJ-CT Botany Online, accessed 14 Dec 2010

History

Welwyn

The museum part of the memorial is housed in the estate's original Georgian-style mansion, "Welwyn", which was built in 1906, and which was designed by

Delano & Aldrich Delano & Aldrich was an American Beaux-Arts architectural firm based in New York City. Many of its clients were among the wealthiest and most powerful families in the state. Founded in 1903, the firm operated as a partnership until 1935, when Ald ...

. Welwyn was part of the estate of

Harold Irving Pratt Harold Irving Pratt (February 1, 1877 – May 29, 1939) was an American oil industrialist and philanthropist. A director of Standard Oil of New Jersey, he also served on the Council of Foreign Relations from 1923 to 1939. Early life He was bor ...

, an American oil industrialist and philanthropist who was born in 1877, and died at Glen Cove in 1939. Harold's wife, Harriet, left the Welwyn estate to Nassau County when she died in 1969. The mansion was neglected for approximately 30 years, during which time for a ten-year period it was used for training staff for the Nassau Sheriff's Department.

HMTC

In 1992, the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County was founded by Boris Chartan, a Holocaust survivor, among others who were a part of a group then called the Holocaust Commission. Chartan's intention was not simply to teach the history of the Holocaust, but to educate people about the shortcomings of all kinds of hatred, prejudice, and intolerance, including antisemitism, racism, and bullying.Website Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County, The Founding of the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County

Accessed 2014.12.27 Chartan would serve as the museum's first chairman upon its opening in 1994. In 1996, the Louis Posner Memorial Library, Long Island’s most extensive collection of literature centered around the Holocaust, genocide, anti-discrimination and other forms of hate would open at the museum. Harriet Pratt - a horticulturist - was an avid proponent of nature and preservation, championing the creation of the garden adjacent to the western side of the mansion as well as the installation of numerous greenhouses on the property. In the years following her death, the garden and surrounding grounds fell into disrepair, leading to overgrowth and decay. However, within years of the museum's opening, the once-magnificent butterfly garden was restored and eventually dedicated in 2003 to the over one million children murdered in the Holocaust.

References

External links

Official website
{{Coord, 40.8840, -73.6417, type:landmark_region:US-NY, display=title Holocaust museums in the United States Museums in Nassau County, New York History museums in New York (state) Glen Cove, New York