HOLOCAUST MUSEUM HOUSTON

NEXTGen & 3GHTX young professionals mingled, explored the galleries, and celebrated Holocaust Museum Houston’s 30th anniversary together! We heard from 3GHTX co-chairs Adrien Heid & Lauren Rubenstein and NEXTGen co-chair Lexie Silverman on the incredible work and mission driving our communities forward.

📣 Now through the end of the month: 15% off NEXTGen membership with code NEXTGen15 — join or renew today and enter to win a raffle prize!

A memorable Art Circle Season 🖼️

Art Circle closed the season on a high note last Monday evening at the beautiful home of Liz and Steve Crowell. Thank you for your gracious hospitality and for sharing a truly extraordinary collection that made the night unforgettable.

We were proud to recognize Katharine Barthelme for her exceptional leadership as Co-Chair over the past two years, and to welcome Liana Schwaitzberg as our new Co-Chair.
With gratitude to our Presenting Sponsor, US Bank Wealth Management, as well as to Sanford Dow, Jacqueline Hecht and Wayne Dorris, and Lauren and Benjamin Hendin for their generous sponsorship this season.

We’re already looking ahead to an exciting 2026–2027 season—stay tuned, and we’ll see you this fall for our kickoff.

Thirty years ago, Holocaust Museum Houston opened its doors with one conviction: that memory, taught with integrity, could change the world. Last night, nearly 1,000 people proved that conviction is still very much alive.

At our 2026 Lyndon Baines Johnson Moral Courage Award Dinner, we celebrated 30 years of education, remembrance, and action. But milestones ask us to look ahead, not just back.

The next 30 years will require allyship. It will require people of every background to step forward and say: this is my responsibility, too. That truth has never been more urgent. This year’s LBJ Moral Courage Award honoree, Emmy Award-winning actress and activist Patricia Heaton, embodies exactly that. She chose to stand with the Jewish community publicly and at personal cost — not because she was asked to, but because she understood that silence is also a choice.

“There is no small effort here… We always must stand up.” — Patricia Heaton

Thank you to our Dinner Chairs Jeannie and Gary Wermuth, Host Committee Chairs Nancy and Jack Dinerstein, and every supporter who made this night possible.

To the survivors in that room — and to those we lost this past year — we carry you forward. Here’s to the next 30 years of legacy, education and hope.

Art Circle members gathered at the beautiful home of Tracy and Glen Larner for a special night of art, conversation, and community. Thank you to our gracious hosts and to Event Elementz for the elegant bites. We were honored to hear from special guest McKay Otto, whose insights made the evening truly meaningful.

Want to be part of HMH & Art Circle? Join by April 30 and receive a 10% off with code AC10. And join us for our season finale on May 4!

Arthur Schechter: Pillar of the community, activist, friend dies at 86 The Jewish Herald-Voice - Houston's Jewish Newspaper

Yom HaShoah is about remembrance, but also responsibility.

The fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto rose up not because the odds were in their favor, but because surrendering their humanity was never an option. They remind us why we remember: to honor the murdered, to tell the truth, and to make sure Jewish pain is never erased.

They also remind us why we keep fighting: because survival matters, dignity matters, and our people have always answered darkness with defiance.

We remember them in grief. We honor them in how we live.

Join us for the Citywide Yom HaShoah Observance - register for more information at HMH.org/yomhashoah

Join us for Zikaron BaSalon at Holocaust Museum Houston as we gather in remembrance, reflection, and community. Our strength comes from connecting across generations. Listening, learning, and sharing with one another. Together, we carry memory forward l’dor v’dor — from generation to generation.

Register on our website at HMH.org/events

Art Circle members gathered for a fascinating and thought-provoking evening at McClain Gallery. Thank you to Robert McClain and his team for their warm hospitality, and to artists Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin for sharing their powerful work and insights. An inspiring night of art and conversation.

February 5, 1943: the Jews of Salonika (Thessaloniki), Greece were ordered to wear yellow stars.

For centuries before that, Salonika was one of the great Jewish cities of the world — a thriving Sephardic community shaped by Ladino language, scholarship, trade, and civic life. On the eve of the Holocaust, more than 50,000 Jews lived there.

And in less than six months, over 90% were murdered.

After the German occupation of Greece, restrictions escalated into forced labor, confiscations, humiliation — and then the final step: ghettos near the rail lines and deportations to Auschwitz. A vibrant world was nearly erased.

Salonika’s story is still too often overlooked, in part because it doesn’t fit the most familiar narratives of Holocaust memory. But remembering it matters. The Holocaust destroyed not only lives, but entire civilizations.