AUGUSTA – The Holocaust Human Rights Center of Maine, in cooperation with the University of Maine at Augusta and the University of Maine System, announces the dedication and consecration of the building site for the new Michael Klahr Holocaust Education Resource Center to be held in the Katz Library on the campus of the University of Maine at Augusta at 3 p.m. Monday, April 26.

Honorary Consul Marek Lesniewski-Laas of the Consulate of the Republic of Poland in Boston will present a small urn with earth from the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau to Gov. John Baldacci, who will present it to Dr. Julius Ciembroniewicz, president of the Holocaust Human Rights Center.

The center received the following from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum that would symbolically link the past with the education mission of the center and the construction of the new Klahr Center: “we would like to offer you a small urn with the earth taken from the areas directly surrounding crematoria and gas chambers in Birkenau. It will not contain human ashes as they have to stay in the sacred site of the Auschwitz Cemetery.”

The intention is to embed the urn into the building of the Klahr Center or place it in a contemplative space.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Holocaust Human Rights Center at 993-2620 or at [email protected].