Major Gift Enables Museum to Launch Revitalization of Permanent Exhibition

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum today announced a $20 million gift from Allan and Shelley Holt, of Washington, D.C., to sponsor a 21st century comprehensive revitalization of its acclaimed Permanent Exhibition. Mr. Holt is the vice chair of the Museum’s governing board. 

The gift, one of the largest the institution has ever received, will ensure that the centerpiece of the Museum, which attracts 1.6 million visitors a year as well as many heads of state, will remain a state-of-the-art-educational experience for people from all parts of the world and all walks of life.  The revitalization project will significantly enhance the exhibition’s ability to contribute to the national and global discourse. 

With the Museum’s 25th anniversary in less than two years, the exhibition project will be central to the institution’s strategic vision for its next 25 years. This will be a pivotal period for the Museum as it continues to work with Holocaust survivors and other eyewitnesses to build its collections and ensure their history is transmitted to future generations with authenticity and sensitivity through an updated exhibition.

“As the son of Holocaust survivors, I wanted to do something that would honor the victims and would also ensure the Museum’s ability to impact new generations in an ever-changing world. Keeping this singular event in history relevant for the future is our greatest responsibility,” said Mr. Holt. 

His father, who is now 96, survived six years in many concentration camps including Auschwitz, and his mother, age 93, survived the Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz. They were liberated by American troops.

“The Museum is an important American institution.  This gift is an expression of our family’s gratitude to this remarkable country, and most especially it honors my parents, all of my grandparents who were killed, and my mother’s two sisters who survived with her,” continued Mr. Holt.

“We are immensely grateful to Allan and Shelley for their gift, one of the three largest gifts to our campaign for the future. This exceptional commitment will have an historic and enduring impact on the institution and fulfills Elie Wiesel’s vision of the Museum as a ‘living memorial,’ said Museum

Chairman Tom Bernstein.  “The Permanent Exhibition is our ‘jewel in the crown,’ known to people worldwide.  The biggest challenge our generation faces is ensuring the memory of the victims as well as the educational power of the exhibition in a dynamic and unpredictable world.” 

Much has changed since the Museum began work on the exhibition in 1989. Since opening in 1993, the Museum’s visitation has become increasingly diverse and approximately one third are students. Visitors today have new expectations and less core knowledge of World War II and the Holocaust.  Enormous changes in education and technology make it now possible to grow the audience for the exhibition and substantially augment its impact before, during and after the visit. 

The revitalization project will:

• Expand the reach and impact of the exhibition and ensure its relevance to new audiences, especially youth. 

• Leverage new technologies to reach and engage a global audience.

• Incorporate more information on the institutional and individual failures that led to total social collapse and genocide.

• Reflect new knowledge from path-breaking scholarship over the past 25 years.

• Showcase recently acquired, rarely seen items from the Museum’s collections.

The project will take advantage of many advances in recent decades. Access to new archives and the emergence of new historical research have deepened understanding of the Holocaust and especially what made it possible.  The Museum’s training programs for law enforcement, the military and the judiciary demonstrate the need to add exhibition content on the failure of societal institutions in a western democracy in order to enhance understanding of why the Holocaust happened.  Furthermore, with the fall of the Soviet Union and as a result of an aggressive worldwide effort to “rescue the evidence,” the Museum's collections have grown substantially, providing a wealth of new material that can enhance its ability to use authentic documentation to tell the story in powerful ways to new audiences.

Working with experts in museology, storytelling, technology, education and Holocaust scholarship, the Museum will embark on a global exploration of the most effective approaches to engage broad and diverse audiences with this history.

Museum Director Sara Bloomfield, who was a member of the professional staff when the Permanent Exhibition was being created, said, “Our Founding Director, the late Jeshajahu (Shaike) Weinberg, was a visionary genius.  He and his team created an exhibition that put the history and lessons of the Holocaust on the map in a fundamentally new way. They created a brilliant exhibition with iconic experiences—the shoes, the railroad car, the barracks and the Tower of Faces. Our job is to preserve it and enhance it for new generations for whom the lessons we have to teach are more relevant and urgent than ever.”

ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN

The gift from Allan and Shelley Holt through their family foundation, the Hillside Foundation, is part of the Museum’s $540 million campaign, led by Honorary Chair Elie Wiesel, that will enable the Museum to make critical investments to keep Holocaust memory alive as a relevant, transformative force in the 21st century. The campaign will create a stronger endowment, increased annual fund, and build a new collections and conservation center.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM

A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum inspires citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Its far-reaching educational programs and global impact are made possible by generous donors. For more information, visit ushmm.org

Related Links

National Campaign to Support the Museum