Miles Lerman (January 6, 1920 – January 22, 2008) was an American activist who helped plan and create both the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, and the memorial at the

Bełżec extermination camp Belzec (English: or , Polish: ) was a Nazi German extermination camp built by the SS for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, the plan to murder all Polish Jews, a major part of the "Final Solution" which in total ...

. Lerman, a

Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accep ...

himself, had fought as a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

resistance fighter A resistance movement is an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to withstand the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability. It may seek to achieve its objectives ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Nazi German Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

occupied

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

Early life

Lerman was born as Szmuel Milek Lerman in

Tomaszów Lubelski Tomaszów Lubelski is a town in south-eastern Poland with 19,365 inhabitants (2017). Situated in the Lublin Voivodeship, near Roztocze National Park, it is the capital of Tomaszów Lubelski County. History The town was founded at the end of the ...

, in 1920. His parents were Israel and Yochevet Feldzon Lerman and he was one of five children. His mother, Yochevet, owned an

import An import is the receiving country in an export from the sending country. Importation and exportation are the defining financial transactions of international trade. In international trade, the importation and exportation of goods are limited ...

and

export An export in international trade is a good produced in one country that is sold into another country or a service provided in one country for a national or resident of another country. The seller of such goods or the service provider is an ...

grocery A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, an ...

business. His father, Israel, owned several businesses throughout eastern Poland, including several

flour mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separat ...

s in Eastern Poland and wholesale liquor and gasoline businesses."Members of the administrative staff of the Schlachtensee displaced persons camp pose in the office of UNRRA camp director Schwartzberg"
photoarchives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; includes a text based on an interview with Miles Lehman on July 17, 2001 Lerman and his family fled to the city of

Lwów Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...

following the

Nazi invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week afte ...

in 1939. In 1941 Lerman was captured and sent to the Vinniki

forced labor camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...

. However, he managed to escape the camp. He spent the next 23 months as a Jewish resistance fighter hidden in the forests surrounding Lwów. He went to the Polish city of

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of canti ...

following the end of the war. There he met his wife, Krysia Rozalia Laks, whom he married in a

Displaced Persons camp A refugee camp is a temporary Human settlement, settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for interna ...

. The couple emigrated together to the United States in 1947. Lerman arrived in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in 1947 before moving to

Vineland, New Jersey Vineland is a city in Cumberland County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city had a total population of 60,780. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 61,156 ...

, in 1948. Lerman purchased a

poultry Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for their eggs, their meat or their feathers. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes (which includes chickens, quails, a ...

farm in Vineland. He also started a series of successful

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

gasoline Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic co ...

and

heating A central heating system provides warmth to a number of spaces within a building from one main source of heat. It is a component of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (short: HVAC) systems, which can both cool and warm interior spaces. ...

businesses.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Miles Lerman's involvement with the

United States Holocaust Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hist ...

can be traced to 1979. That year,

United States President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United State ...

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...

named Lerman to the President’s Commission

advisory board An advisory board is a body that provides non-binding strategic advice to the management of a corporation, organization, or foundation. The informal nature of an advisory board gives greater flexibility in structure and management compared to th ...

on the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

. One of the Commission's main tasks was the creation of a museum dedicated to the remembrance of the Holocaust. The

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

passed a

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolled bill, enrolling, enactment of a bill, enacting, or promulgation, promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous Government, governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law i ...

granting land on the

National Mall The National Mall is a Landscape architecture, landscaped park near the Downtown, Washington, D.C., downtown area of Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States. It contains and borders a number of museums of the Smithsonian Institut ...

Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

for the purpose of building the museum. However, all funds for the construction of the museum had to be raised privately. Lerman, who became

chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

of the Campaign to Remember, and the committee managed to raise $190 million in order to construct and endow the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He also served simultaneously as the chairman of the future museum's

International Relations International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such as ...

Committee, which was charged with negotiating with

Eastern European Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...

nations in order to obtain artifacts focusing on Jewish life and the

for the museum's permanent collection. Lerman's IR Committee managed to obtain a number of important artifacts, including actual

barracks Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are u ...

from the

Birkenau concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

, a

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

boxcar A boxcar is the North American ( AAR) term for a railroad car that is enclosed and generally used to carry freight. The boxcar, while not the simplest freight car design, is considered one of the most versatile since it can carry most ...

used to transport Jewish prisoners to

Treblinka Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...

, over 5,000 shoes from

Majdanek Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, a ...

and various toothbrushes,

suitcase A suitcase is a form of luggage. It is a rectangular container with a handle typically used to carry one's clothes and other belongings while traveling. The first suitcases appeared in the late 19th century due to the increased popularity of ma ...

s and other personal items from

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

. Lerman served as chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's governing board from the time of its opening on April 22, 1993, until he left the museum in 2000. Additionally, Lerman helped to found the museum's Committee on Conscience, which works to draw attention to contemporary

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...

issues, such as the current

Darfur crisis The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, is a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups bega ...

. Lerman, who spoke several languages, returned to his native Poland following his departure from the museum in 2000. There he campaigned for a proper memorial for his family members (both his parents perished in Belzec), as well as the other estimated 500,000 Jews who died at the

Belzec extermination camp Belzec (English: or , Polish: ) was a Nazi German extermination camp built by the SS for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, the plan to murder all Polish Jews, a major part of the "Final Solution" which in total ...

. The existing Communist era memorial, which stood in a former garbage dump, made no mention of Jewish Holocaust victims. Lerman raised approximately 5 million dollars to build a new memorial by teaming up with the

Polish government The Government of Poland takes the form of a Unitary state, unitary Parliamentary republic, parliamentary Representative democracy, representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Poland, President is the head of state and the Prime ...

and the

American Jewish Committee The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a Jewish advocacy group established on November 11, 1906. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations and, according to ''The New York Times'', is "widely regarded as the dean of American Jewish org ...

. Miles Lerman spoke at the dedication of the new Belzec memorial, which was held on June 3, 2004, telling the story of 9 year old Deborah Katz, one of the death camp's estimated 500,000 to 600,000 victims.

Death

Miles Lerman died at his home in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, on January 22, 2008, at the age of 88. He was buried in Alliance Cemetery in

. He was survived by his wife, Chris, whose real name is Krysia Rozalia Laks, his daughter, philanthropist Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer; his son David and his brother, Jona.

References

External links

United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumUnited States Holocaust Memorial Museum Committee on ConscienceVineland Daily Journal: Lerman recalled as vocal Holocaust survivor, Jewish history activist
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lerman, Miles 1920 births 2008 deaths American people of Polish-Jewish descent Jewish partisans Museum founders Polish resistance members of World War II People from Tomaszów Lubelski County People from Vineland, New Jersey United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 20th-century philanthropists Polish emigrants to the United States