Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LAMOTH) Tours

Tucked into the western side of Pan Pacific Park, Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (LAMOTH) is set in an area called Mid-City West. home to one of the highest concentrations of Orthodox Jews in both L.A. and the country. Opened in 2010 under a 50-year lease with the City of Los Angeles, the museum, originally designed to display the concentration camp artifacts of local Holocaust survivors, is housed in a LEED-certified building with a living roof that blends gently into the surrounding green space.

The museum’s nine rooms decrease in light as you go farther into the building and delve more deeply into the history of the Holocaust. Interactive exhibits include a virtual gallery of photographs, personal accounts written by survivors, and recreations of concentration camp rooms used for extermination and twisted medical experiments. Resistance and rescue efforts during the Holocaust and World War II are also highlighted, ending with a message of hope.

1 ½-hour docent-led tours of the museum are available to the general public by advance reservation; a lead time of two weeks is requested.

Almost entirely focused on a Jewish experience of this tragic era, the museum also touches on the Nazis’ persecution of groups like Catholics, homosexuals, the Roma, and the handicapped. LAMOTH can serve as a companion to the Westside’s well-known Museum of Tolerance, which explores prejudice and acts of violence against an even wider variety of humanity.