Museum docent-led tours are back

Susan Suarez, President & CEO

We have great news — our popular docent-led tours are back! For your safety, the Museum follows all CDC guidelines. Preregistration is required for several available tour options, and a minimum of four reservations are requested for the tours to take place. Here are the details:

Morning docent-led tours

Open to the public, these tours are held Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings from 10 to 11:30 a.m. and can accommodate up to 12 people. As reservations are required, please RSVP on the Museum website, www.HMCEC.org, for available dates. Tickets are $15 per person.

Perfectly Paradise Authentic Experience tour

This two-part tour, created in conjunction with the Naples/Marco Island/ Everglades Convention and Visitors Bureau, is open to the public and features “Stories of the Holocaust and Behind the Scenes at the Holocaust Museum & Cohen Education Center.”

D-Day 1 beach from Ken Regele Collection

Part 1 is a guided Museum tour by Director of Operations/Education Specialist Sam Parish. Part 2 is a “Behind the Scenes Tour” inside the Museum archives with Curator Cody Rademacher and a short presentation on selected items in the collection.

Held the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month, 2-4 p.m., the tour accommodates up to 12 people. Reservations are required and can be made at www. HMCEC.org. Tickets are $25 per person.

Private group tours

Scheduled by appointment, private group tours are offered for groups of 12 to 15 people (group can be an organization, family, friends, etc.) and are scheduled at the convenience of the group, generally in the mornings. Docent-led tour or self-guided tablets are available. The cost is $15 per person. To schedule a tour or for more information, contact David Nelson at 239-263-9200 or David@HMCEC.org.

Student field trips are also offered by appointment for groups of up to 30 people, inclusive of teachers and chaperones. School may be coming to an end tours are back...continued from page 8 this month, but this program continues in the summer for youth groups. For more information, contact Sam Parish at 239-263-9200 or Sam@HMCEC.org.

Twin Eagles group tour

Docent tour

We would love to see you for a regular visit too, and encourage you to prepurchase your ticket on our website at www.HMCEC.org. This not only guarantees admittance at your preferred arrival time, but you’ll receive a $2 discount on the price of an adult ticket.

Museum hours are Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. The last guests are admitted at 3 p.m.

New exhibit to open on Sunday, June 6

Our next exhibit in the Estelle and Stuart Price Gallery opens Sunday, June 6. “Caught on Film: The Wartime Photography of Ken Regele and the U.S. Army Signal Corps” fittingly opens on the 76th anniversary of D-Day. The exhibit draws from the Museum’s Ken Regele Photographic Collection. Each photograph gives the viewer a rare, up-close perspective on various aspects of World War II.

Ken Regele was trained by the United States Army to be a cameraman in the U.S. Signal Corps. These photographers and filmmakers were often on the war’s front lines, armed with nothing more than their cameras. The Signal Corps took thousands of photographs and shot hundreds of feet of film during their operations.

Regele and his team traveled across the European continent, documenting Allied operations for review by military commanders. The documentation was later used by post-war military historians. Before Regele was honorably discharged after the war, he took two rolls of film with him, whose negatives contained a wide variety of images taken by Signal Corps photographic teams. He held onto these rolls, keeping them in a drawer for nearly 60 years, before donating them to the Museum. One of these rolls was blank; the other possessed numerous incredible images, from preparations for D-Day to Liberation and the end of the war in Europe.

In addition to combat scenes, the Regele Collection Signal Corps images include photographs of military life behind the front lines. They documented all sorts of activities, ranging from those of the average G.I. up to Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower and his generals.

“Caught on Film: The Wartime Photography of Ken Regele and the U.S. Army Signal Corps” will be on display through October 17, 2021.

Stay safe!

Cody with Archive Drawer