Skokie's role in changing the silence of Holocaust survivors

Three weeks ago I picked up a Moment magazine in Manhattan with an article about Skokie, IL. I was especially interested since I was planning to speak at the Messianic Jewish Synagogue in Skokie (http://www.devaremet.org/) in a couple weeks on "Jesus the SuperJew - 100% Kosher." The service at Devar Emet was great: balanced, Jewishly aware, Yeshua focused, and somewhat observant. Being in Skokie and knowing about its significant and rich Jewish history was special. Check out the article here: Howard Reich, "The Life and Times of Skokie" in Moment: Independent Journalism from a Jewish Perspective, May/June 2010

The online version of the article doesn't have the pictures, some of which are a bit surprising especially the Nazi uniformed "Frank Collin in 1977." So I found this blog with his picture/video: http://skokiearchive.blogspot.com/2009/04/frank-collin-neo-nazi-leader-of-nspa.html.

This article sheds light on a small but important piece of historical noteworthiness on the limits of freedom of speech, an impetus of the change from silence about the Holocaust to public discussion and the creation of a museum. Here's a nice portion, "For all the agonies that this strange, angry man [Frank Collin] inflicted on the survivors, his actions, in fact, transformed them. By organizing to defeat him, they stepped fully into public view for the first time. They spent the next several decades championing human rights and tolerance in Skokie. In 1982 they opened a small storefront Holocaust museum a few blocks from my parents’ home in a former dental office, next door to a tavern. A few years later, in 1987, they erected a Holocaust memorial—a Jewish freedom fighter guarding a family that includes a grandfather, a mother and child—on a sliver of land between Skokie Village Hall and the Skokie Public Library. And through lobbying, they succeeded in making Illinois, in 1990, the first state in the nation to require Holocaust education."