On November 14, 2024, The Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art alongside local rabbis held a funeral for human remains of victims of the Holocaust found in our collection.

These remains were donated to the museum prior to the year 2000 and were deaccessioned (removed formally) from the collection as is the standard museum practice when it comes to human remains in many cases.

A memorial stone will be placed at the site of burial in the near future.

The following is an excerpt from my eulogy which was read at the funeral:

March 20, 2023 was my first day working at The Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art. I was so excited and honored to be starting my dream job and to get to know the collection I would now be responsible for.

I went into the job with the understanding that my primary responsibilities would be to curate exhibits focusing on Jewish art and history and maintain our collection. I never could have imagined that my responsibilities would involve caring for human remains from the Holocaust, and planning a funeral for them.

The journey to get to this moment has been incredibly challenging, it has also been a complete honor. When I discovered human remains in our collection, I immediately began to contact the experts. Rabbis were consulted, museum professionals were spoken with, and an archeologist was brought into the process to give us more information about what we had in our collection. Who we had in our collection.

I remember sitting in my car in Freddy’s Frozen Custard parking lot sometime in the spring of 2023, trying to process, I wrote:

I’m sitting in my car eating frozen custard.

I could be thinking about any number of things. But what I am thinking about is what I should say at the funeral I am going to lead for the human remains I found at work. 

I’m thinking about how I want to get my conversion over with so I can bury some of the 6 million as a Jew. So I don’t need to look at the box they are in every time I am at work.

I never thought I would confront the Holocaust like this. This was the job of liberators. I can now relate to an ounce of the horror they must have felt. 

The horror of a charred bone.

That bone, it turns out. Belonged to a 12-year-old. Perhaps a little older, perhaps a little younger. Dr. Miriam Belmaker of the University of Tulsa was able to verify that yes it belonged to a child, and yes, that child was a victim of the crematoria at Auschwitz.

She was also able to verify that at least five people are represented in the 47 teeth from Dachau. And that some of them belonged to children.

For a long time, I carried the weight of these remains alone. I felt deeply responsible for their safety and dignity. Dr. Belmaker has shared in carrying the weight.

It wasn’t until late in this process that I found out most other Holocaust museums have had funerals like the one we are having today. At one point it was common for remains to be a part of museum collections. Museums tend to talk about their collection items that are problematic in hushed voices. Yet we all have them, and as museums, especially small museums review their collections, it is important to talk about them, to normalize these discussions as part of what it means to be a museum that deals with difficult history and wants to operate with dignity.

I have spent all of my adult life striving to bear witness to the Holocaust and educate others so that we may identify warning signs of fascism and make never again a reality. As a Holocaust educator, I often feel as though I am screaming into a void as never again happens again and again and again.

But today we have a rare opportunity to come together as a community and grieve. We have the great honor of laying to rest actual victims of the Shoah.

Today we physically lay to rest the anonymous. We lay to rest portions of the 6 million.

We know nothing about them. We will never know anything about who they were before, and what they witnessed during the Shoah.

Most Shoah victims were scattered to the wind. Today I think of those we know who perished. I think of Czech composer Pavel Haas. I think of Elie Wiesel’s sister Tzipora. I think of the families of those of you here today who carry with you memories of the horror.

Today Tulsa cries out in mourning for you. We are a city bound to remember and to actively work to combat hatred due to our own history.

Today we do not promise never again, but we hope for it. We vow to work toward it. Today we grieve. Today we have the highest honor of bestowing some level of peace to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. To Ruth, Rachel, and Sarah. To Moses. To Tzipora. To 6 million.

May their memories be a blessing.