The University of North Dakota is under pressure from Jewish leaders to educate students about the Holocaust with some of the $5 million it was promised by a casino owner who collects Nazi memorabilia. Ralph Engelstad, owner of the Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and a 1954 graduate of UND, pledged the money to support the school's hockey program. Engelstad has been under fire since it was revealed earlier this month that he had amassed a large collection of Nazi war equipment and twice held theme parties celebrating Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's birthday. Engelstad has apologized for the parties and offered to give his collection to the National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Morton Ryweck, regional director for the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, said Wednesday that Engelstad's collection and parties had ``trivialized the Holocaust.'' Engelstad's apology would mean more if he would rededicate part of his $5 million endowment to education on the evils of Nazism and the Holocaust, Ryweck said in a letter to UND President Thomas Clifford. ``In the future, there would be fewer people ignorant about it, and fewer people who are apt to trivialize it, as was done in Las Vegas with these parties,'' Ryweck said. Mara Sapon-Shevin, a member of the Grand Forks Jewily's hands. Kraft died in 1953.
