Houston, TX

Houston Holocaust Museum

Address: 5401 Caroline St., Houston TX 77004 - MAP
Phone: (713) 942-8000
Web: www.hmh.org

The Houston Holocaust Museum was spurred by one man's epiphany: Survivors who lived in the Houston area were getting older, and their stories of the Holocaust would fade - along with the lesson of unchecked prejudice and the power of peace.

For more than 10 years Siegi Izakson focused on his mission to create a suitable memorial and educational center. Then, in 1990, a well-known Jewish community leader embraced his idea. She used her influence to begin a successful capital campaign for a Holocaust museum in Houston.

The Houston Holocaust Museum is located in the Houston Museum district and opened in 1996, to which Izakson proclaimed, "This means the Holocaust story will not go away."

The museum is an ever-evolving, living museum. It includes a permanent exhibit and temporary exhibits on loan from other Holocaust Museums around the country.

Many who have visited here - survivors, adults, schoolchildren - have left notes, poems, artwork and gifts to express their feelings upon seeing the exhibits.

The Permanent Exhibition at the Museum is called "Bearing Witness: A Community Remembers." The tour begins with a look at life before the Holocaust and the beginning of Nazism. The exhibit then shows its insidious progression, from segregation, to imprisonment, to extermination.

Artifacts, film reels, photographs, and text panels tell the story and set the backdrop for personal accounts from local survivors in the short films "Voices" and "Voices II."

The many items on display include:

• A World War II Holocaust Railcar - This was the type of car used to carry millions of Jews to concentration camps and, ultimately, to their deaths.
• Danish Rescue Boat - This 1942 Danish rescue boat is the type that saved more than 7,200 Jews from almost certain execution at the hands of Nazi Germany.

Two areas of the museum encourage reflection and meditation. They are the Lack Family Memorial Room, which contains the Wall of Remembrance, the Wall of Tears and the Wall of Hope. The Memorial Wall is a place where local Holocaust survivors can commemorate their lost loved ones.

The other area for quiet reflection is called the Eric Alexander Garden of Hope, a garden dedicated to the memory of the 1.5 million children who died in the Holocaust.