Eisenberg Gallery at the J

Gallery Hours

Monday – Thursday
5:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Friday
5:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Saturday – Sunday
7:30 a.m. – 7:00 p.m.

Admission: FREE
Open to the public.
All guests must check in with
the Front Desk receptionist.

Thomas Naegele, a German citizen with Jewish heritage, fled Nazi Germany in 1938 when he was just 14 years old. A few years after settling in New York with his family, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He was eventually assigned to Internment Camp Indianola in Nebraska, where he served as a German interpreter. During his free time, Naegele painted what he saw. This exhibit documents his experience.

“When I think back to my childhood, the years 1933 through 1938, when I grew from a boy of nine to a young man of 14, I remember my classmates, innocent boys in their black Jungvolk Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) uniforms, eagerly reporting for duty twice a week to be pumped full of Nazi ideology. Looking back, it’s not hard to see why they would later give their all for Führer, Volk, und Vaterland. They were brainwashed, indoctrinated, programmed to do as they were told. Today only a handful of them remain to tell their stories. How thankful must I be, therefore, that fate and the determination of my mother, in particular, whisked me out of the path of ruthless evil in the nick of time. My Jewish maternal grandmother wept bitterly on the September evening in 1938 when my elder brother Kaspar and I came to say goodbye to her. Kaspar and I were leaving for England, attending boarding schools where we were sponsored by anonymous benefactors. Our grandmother hugged us and said she feared she would never see us again. She was right, of course. Soon I was on my way to England, leaving my homeland, my language, and my sense of self. There, I would have to speak and study in English; mind my tongue, manners; put up with a variety of indignities in a rigid, tradition-bound school; and try to explain what was going on in my native country.

Two years were to pass before I would reach America where I would eventually be drafted by the U.S. Army and serve as a German interpreter. Five years of German victories and expansion lay ahead, during which our grandmother was evicted from her home to ever more crowded quarters, then shipped East to die en route to a concentration camp. Six years would pass while Stuttgart was reduced to rubble. Seven years until Germany surrendered. Thirteen years until I saw Stuttgart again, its familiar topography and thoroughfares gutted almost beyond recognition.”

– Thomas Naegele

Special Event!
October 16 | 11:30 AM | Via ZOOM
Join the Institute for Holocaust Education and the Nebraska Jewish Historical Society for a special presentation with Micah Huyser, Executive Director of the Nebraska Prairie Museum. Huyser will discuss the paintings currently on display in the Eisenberg Gallery at the Staenberg Omaha JCC. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to explore a little-known chapter of Nebraska history through art, storytelling, and scholarship. For the Zoom link and to get more information about the presentation, contact Scott Littky at slittky@ihene.org.