Lucy the Elephant embroiled in controversy over ‘Never forget, never again’ fund-raising language

MARGATE, N.J. — Lucy the Elephant needs $800,000 in donations to pay for her extensive restoration, but a recent fund-raising mailer has surrounded the Margate icon in controversy.

The mailer, sent to 10,000 people, used the phrase “Never forget, never again” — words long associated with the Holocaust — next to a photo of Lucy the Elephant in 1973, when the roadside attraction was threatened with the wrecking ball.

Susan Klyman, a resident of Margate and Newtown, Bucks County, and a member of the Philadelphia-based Sons & Daughters of Holocaust Survivors, said she was outraged.

“I consider this to be an egregious problem,” Klyman said in an interview Tuesday. “The Lucy campaign is using Holocaust language in a very cavalier way. They’re co-opting the language. This is not cavalier language you get to use for a goddamned elephant.”

Richard Helfant, the executive director of the Save Lucy Committee, said he did not mean to evoke the Holocaust or show any disrespect by using the words in the campaign. He noted the words have been used in connection with 9/11 and other fund-raising efforts.

“The words are not trademarked,” Helfant said. “My grandparents are Holocaust survivors. It was a picture of Lucy minutes before the wrecking ball when she was falling apart. The caption under the picture was those four words. Because we can’t let that happen again.”

The roadside attraction that dates to 1881 and was once a hotel has been under wraps and scaffolding for months as a $1.4 million restoration grew to $2.2 million, leaving the foundation $800,000 short, Helfant said. About $1.2 million of the project is being financed through grants, he said.

He said the phrase used in those mailers would not be used again, though he declined to apologize, as Klyman had requested.

Klyman said that when she complained to Helfant, he told her it was “your opinion” that the words were associated strictly with the Holocaust and declined to issue any apology or another mailer. Helfant said the nonprofit cannot afford to send another mailer.

Klyman noted the words “Never forget, never again” are historically linked to the Holocaust, initially as a pledge made by Western leaders after Hitler’s genocide against Jews and the slaughter of millions of other Europeans, and subsequently as a rallying cry for people fighting for Holocaust remembrance and education.

For Klyman, the fact that Helfant and others associated with the Lucy nonprofit are Jewish only emphasized the need for education on the matter.

“I have fondness for Lucy,” Klyman said. “There is a degree of responsibility to make sure that people understand this. I don’t think it’s a joke in any way, shape, or form. People take Lucy very seriously. She’s iconic.”

Klyman also wrote a letter to Davida Ross, the Lucy Board president, noting the words were described in 2012 by Elie Wiesel as “... more than a slogan: It’s a prayer, a promise, a vow … never again the glorification of base, ugly, dark violence.”

“Using a phrase that represents the Holocaust and other genocides for non-Holocaust fund-raising is both insensitive and demeaning to the catastrophic, historic events of the Holocaust, a genocide where millions of people were slaughtered,” she wrote.

She said Ross never responded.

Ross is Jewish, as are seven members of its board. Helfant said none raised any issues about the wording, which appeared on a reply donation card included in the mailer.

Helfant said he worried that the controversy would hurt fund-raising for the restoration, which he hopes will be completed in mid- to late August, in time for an early September removal of Lucy’s scaffolding and covering. The popular tourist stop at 9200 Atlantic Ave. in Margate is still open for tours.

Helfant said the mailer had generated $62,000 in donations. He said he was unsure what Klyman was asking of him now, as the mailers had already been sent out.

“Her accusations were that I/Lucy were disrespectful of victims of the Holocaust. That is absurd,” he said. “I am a charter member of the Museum of the Holocaust in D.C. To even equate saving Lucy to the Holocaust is ridiculous and absurd.”

Helfant stressed the dire state of Lucy’s condition and urged people to donate.

“We can never let it happen again,” Helfant said. “And we can never forget how close she was to the wrecking ball. Literally minutes. Without a court injunction she would have been torn down. And she is important in her own right.”