Children of Holocaust Survivors to Introduce THE DACHAU ALBUM at Sheen Center

On Sunday, April 23, 2017, a true 'ARTifact' will be presented in New York City for the first time by the Arnold Unger Foundation for Remembrance, Inc. in association with the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture and Jewish Broadcasting Service (JBS).

Together they will be hosting a presentation of The Dachau Album: An Interfaith Holocaust Project. This artifact, hidden for 70 years, acts as a Holocaust time capsule, intertwining the lives of two concentration camp survivors: Arnold Unger, a 15-year-old Jewish prisoner and Roman Catholic prisoner and master artist, Michal Porulski, whose 30-original hand drawn illustrations make this artifact an important legacy for today.

Avi Hoffman, renowned actor, Jewish culture activist, founder of the Yiddishkayt Initiative and President & Executive Director of the Arnold Unger Foundation for Remembrance, Inc., is the individual responsible for bringing this special project to New York City. Hoffman will be joined by Shari Unger, the daughter of Arnold Unger and the Foundation's CEO.

"The date of this special experience makes this important project even more significant," said Hoffman. "We are hosting this event on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising and Divine Mercy Sunday - we are truly interconnecting the worlds of religion, art and reality, life and death, love, desperation, and the ultimate triumph of hope and the human spirit inherent in the Dachau Album."

This special evening will consist of a private VIP reception for those who want to experience the original Album and supplemental artifacts in person. The VIP reception will be followed by a multi-media presentation and panel discussion, sponsored by the University of Miami's Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies and The Manhattan Jewish Historical Initiative, on the subject #NeverAgainIsNow.

The panel, moderated by media entrepreneur, TV personality and educator Rabbi Mark Golub, will feature the following distinguished group of experts:

- Dr. Debbie Almontaser - Founder and CEO of Bridging Cultures Group, Inc. She is also founding and former principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy.

- Dr. Yael Danieli - Internationally renowned expert victimologist and traumatologist as well as Advisor on Victims of Terrorism for the office of the Secretary General of the United Nations.

- Steven A. Ludsin - Charter member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, a presidential appointment and member of the original President's Commission on the Holocaust.

- Reverend Brian E. McWeeney - Director of the Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at Archdiocese of New York.

The event will take place at The Sheen Center, 18 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012 on Sunday, April 23, 2017 (VIP Reception - 4:30 p.m.; Presentation - 6:00 p.m.).

Tickets: $5,000 VIP Tier 1 admission, includes VIP reception - 20 tickets available. Serious Inquiries Only. Contact: info@dachaualbum.org; $1,000 VIP Tier 2 Preferred seating - 20 tickets available. Serious Inquiries Only. Contact: info@dachaualbum.org. Reserved seating: $54, $36 and $18. For purchase, visit www.sheencenter.org/shows/dachau or call the Box Office at (212) 925-2812.

Arnold Unger Foundation for Remembrance, Inc. is a not for profit organization dedicated to greater awareness and education of the interfaith and multi-cultural aspects of the Holocaust. Inspired by the Dachau Album, their mission is to enlighten the world of the destruction caused by religious, social and political intolerance. Founding sponsors: Beatrice Cummings Mayer and the Nathan Cummings Foundation. Visit www.dachaualbum.org for more information.

Located in the NoHo/East Village section of downtown New York on historic Bleecker Street, the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture is an vibrant new arts organization that presents over 75 events a year specializing in theatre, music, film, and talks. A project of the Archdiocese of New York, the Sheen Center complex encompasses the 270-seat Loreto Theater, a 80-seat Black Box Theatre, four rehearsal studios, and an Art Gallery. The Sheen Center is a forum to highlight the true, the good, and the beautiful as they have been expressed throughout the ages. Cognizant of our creation in the image and likeness of God, the Sheen Center aspires to present the heights and depths of human expression in thought and culture, featuring humankind as fully alive. At the Sheen Center, we proclaim that life is worth living, especially when we seek to deepen, explore, challenge ourselves, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, intellectually, artistically, and spiritually.

To provide a free Jewish educational television network that fosters Jewish understanding, strengthens Jewish identity, and inspires Jewish commitment among both involved and unengaged Jews, as well as interested non-Jews.

The legacy of the Dachau Album has been bestowed upon Shari, the second of Arnold Unger's four children, to deliver this keepsake to the world on his behalf. Since his suicide on Thanksgiving Day in 1972, Shari has assumed the responsibility too painful for her father to accept. From his early captivity in Poland to his eventual liberation from the Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany, Arnold's impressive intellect and endearing nature led him to be chosen by the American Officers governing the Dachau DP Camp as their office boy and translator, leading to the creation of the Album for him personally. Upon his immigration to America, he achieved much success as an aerospace engineer and member of the design team for the Apollo Lunar Module.

Avi Hoffman was recently inducted into the Bronx Jewish Hall of Fame, was nominated for a NY Drama Desk Award for his Yiddish language portrayal of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman and was invited to the Vatican to introduce Pope Francis to the Dachau Album: An Interfaith Holocaust Project. He is the founder of the Yiddishkayt Initiative, is the producing artistic director of the Joseph Papp Yiddish Theatre (www.josephpappyiddishtheatre.org) and is known for his award-winning PBS one-man shows Too Jewish, Too Jewish, Too! and Still Jewish After All These Years (Performer of the Year '95 - NY Press Magazine; L.A. OVATION award - Best Actor In a Musical 2001; NY Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle award nominations). On TV, he was featured as Sid Raskin in the Starz TV series Magic City, as well as on Netflix' Bloodline, A&E's The Glades and on the NBC series Law and Order. He starred in the motion picture - The Imported Bridegroom and was seen in the PBS documentary They Came For Good: A History of the Jews in the US. Avi has performed all over the world and has numerous acting and directing credits and has received multiple awards and nominations.

The Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies at the University of Miami is a UM-wide Center. It provides an objective, in-depth exploration of the issues and trends which have affected the Jewish people over the last 100 years. For more information, visit www.miami.edu/miller-center.

Through the Manhattan Jewish Historical Initiative, the story of the Jewish community can be marketed to the world, serving as a means by which the life, institutions, and cultural activities of the New York Jewish community can be defined, and marketed for the purpose of giving due recognition to its great achievements, and its role in fostering the Jewish religion, Jewish cultural life and thinking, and Tikkun Olam, in its contribution to the greater multicultural community it has lived with in Manhattan, NYC, America, Israel and the world.