A displaced Holocaust and World War II museum has found a temporary home in Adams and the new digs also share a passion for history.Darrell English closed the doors of the New England Holocaust Institute & Museum on Eagle Street in North Adams in April, roughly three years after opening. Its existence has waxed and waned with financial restraints, coming to the brink of closing only to have donations set it upright for the time being. Now it’s opening in the Adams Free Library.
“What I’m hoping this museum could possibly be at some future point…a real functional museum somewhere offering a lot more events and activities to help broaden the subject matter that I’m hoping to cover that being World War II and the Holocaust, together combined,” said English.
Town administrator Tony Mazzucco reached out to English about moving the museum to Adams after the doors shut in North Adams. English, who calls North Adams home, says he would like to keep the museum in Adams or at least the north Berkshires. He’s kicking around the idea of coordinating programming with the Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School down the street in Adams. He’s collected about 3,000 Nazi Germany and World War II artifacts throughout his life including items from Hitler’s personal collection and concentration camps.
“I’m not the museum tech,” English said. “I’m not the fundraiser. I’m the Indiana Jones guy that knows what is real, right and has historical perspective and I go after it. That’s my job.”
The Holocaust museum will set up next to the Grand Army of the Republic hall on the library’s second floor. GAR chapters played the role of modern day American Legion and VFW posts for Civil War veterans, according to Adams historical commission member Eugene Michalenko.
“The local post was 126 and it was named after George E. Sayles, who was the first Adams boy to die in the Civil War,” said Michalenko.
The Adams Library was built in the late 1890s to serve as a library and civil war memorial, since the town didn’t have one after splitting from North Adams. The building would serve as the GAR’s meeting place until 1922 when the local post disbanded.
“All the furnishings in the room are the originals that were there in 1899,” he said. “So all those chairs were once occupied by veterans of the Civil War. We have the original invoices of those chairs. They were only like a dollar and a quarter, but they’re these beautiful oak carved chairs.”
Michalenko believes the Adams hall is one of two or three remaining in New England. On the ceiling there are decorations of famous battles Adams men fought in. He says 38 men from Adams were killed in the Civil War.
“We also have a battleship flag from the Civil War,” Michalenko said. “It’s 18 feet by 24 feet. That flew on the USS Brooklyn. We displayed that last year at the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Mobile Bay. I think that was the last major naval battle in the war. That battle is also the one with the famous line ‘Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.’”
Michalenko says a man who lived on Florida Mountain served on the ship, donating the flag to the GAR post of which he was a member. William McKinley, the last U.S. president to fight in the Civil War, laid the cornerstone for the Adams Free Library in 1897. A statute of McKinley stands outside the building, which opened in 1899.
“The Spanish-American War had just ended a year earlier so there is a plaque made out of salvaged material from the USS Maine that commemorates the loss of the USS Maine that started the Spanish-American War,” he said. “In that row of battles on the ceiling, one of them is the Battle of El Caney and it’s the only battle up there that is not a Civil War battle, but a battle that local boys fought in during the Spanish American War.”
The library is finishing up a $750,000 renovation to fix collapsing walls and improve access. Director Deborah Bruneau says some 200 to 300 people come through the building every day in the summer.
“Hopefully with Mr. English up there they’ll get to see a little more of Memorial Hall,” Bruneau said. “We’ve already had people from Worcester stopping in to go up and fortunately there was a staff person available to bring them up and show them around.”
The New England Holocaust Institute & Museum will be open the same hours as the library which can be found here.
