Aaron Ziegelman
The Man Behind the Exhibition
The Luboml exhibit was organized in 1994 by a New York real estate tycoon and native of Luboml, Aaron Ziegelman. He wanted to remember the community that had been so dear to him as a child-the community that had been destroyed by the Nazis during the Second World War.
For Ziegelman to instill the message that real people were humiliated, harassed and brutally killed during the Holocaust, the loss had to be made personal. In July 1997, Ziegelman stated in an interview with The Jerusalem Post, "before they were victims, they were people."
When Ziegelman was 5, his father died. To support his family, his mother opened a little restaurant and Aaron helped out by clearing dishes. A typical meal served to non-Jewish customers was a loaf of dark bread, a piece of lard and washed down with some vodka.
Aaron Ziegelman left Luboml in 1938 before the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. He, his mother and sister boarded the SS Pilsudski bound for New York. Ziegelman can remember the taste of the rare treat of homemade ice cream and he can still feel every bump in the road from a 4-hour horse and buggy ride to a neighboring village-a ride that took only 10 minutes by car in 1991. "When I left Luboml, I had a dream of returning as a rich American bearing gifts to friends and relatives. The exhibition is a fulfillment of that dream."