VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Efforts of fleeing Jews to resettle in the United States and the organizations that helped them are at the heart of a new exhibition at Holocaust Museum Houston. The Museum’s new library exhibition Passage to a New Life – Highlights from the Collections of Holocaust Museum Houston, opens Friday, Jan. 14, 2011 and runs through Sunday, Aug. 7, 2011 December 31, 2011 in the Museum’s Laurie and Milton Boniuk Resource Center and Library in the Morgan Family Center at 5401 Caroline St. in Houston’s Museum District. Viewing hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Admission is free.

Transition from refugee status to citizenship after the Holocaust was difficult, and several groups assisted in the care and resettlement of displaced persons. Materials displayed will highlight the period from early World War II when people were fleeing Nazi persecution to post-war Europe.

The exhibition includes a selection of photographs, documents and artifacts from the Museum’s permanent collections and focuses on some of the relief organizations that assisted with immigration. It includes items of memorabilia saved from ship passages by Holocaust survivors.

Among the items to be displayed are a baggage ticket, ship newsletter and photos from Irving Reifer, a Holocaust survivor born in Poland in 1924 who endured nine concentration camps and a death march during the Holocaust. Unable to return to his home, he spent several years in three displaced persons camps (Leipheim, Lechfeld and Neu-Ulm) before eventually immigrating to the United States in 1950.

Also on display is a passenger ticket for the Marine Flasher from U.S. Lines Co. for survivor Ernst Werner, as well as his immigration visa, passport, a telegram and a photograph.

The collection also includes affidavits, a certificate of identity in lieu of a passport and Republic of Cuba immigration documentation for survivor Abraham Moszkowicz.

“Passage to a New Life” is the first in a series of library exhibitions scheduled in honor of Holocaust Museum Houston’s 15th anniversary in March 2011.

The exhibit is presented with special thanks to Continental Airlines, official airline of Holocaust Museum Houston.

Holocaust Museum Houston is dedicated to educating people about the Holocaust, remembering the 6 million Jews and other innocent victims and honoring the survivors' legacy. Using the lessons of the Holocaust and other genocides, the Museum teaches the dangers of hatred, prejudice and apathy.

Holocaust Museum Houston’s Morgan Family Center is free and open to the public and is located in Houston’s Museum District at 5401 Caroline St., Houston, TX 77004. For more information about the Museum, call 713-942-8000 or visit www.hmh.org.

Pictured:  Irving Reifer aboard the USNS General M.L. Hershey on his way to America. Courtesy, Holocaust Museum Houston. (image detail above, full image below).