Dallas Holocaust Museum Expands Location & Mission
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DALLAS (KRLD) - The Dallas Holocaust Museum is expanding, with the goal of bringing more awareness to history and human rights.
The museum will now become the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum. With the new name comes a new location on Houston Street, near the DART line along Pacific Avenue. The building should be finished sometime in 2018.
The museum also has a new mission. It will teach not only the history of the Holocaust, but the history of other genocides and of global human rights.
"At a time when Texas leads the country in active hate groups, and we're still recovering from the July 7th attack on police officers, we believe the new mission of the museum is more important than ever," says museum CEO Mary Pat Higgins.
Former Texas senator Florence Shapiro says the museum holds a special place in her heart.
"As the child of two Holocaust survivors, I grew up knowing my parents were different," she says. "As I grew up I began to understand that they were who they were because of the things they had to endure."
Dallas city leaders say the new Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights museum will be a space to discuss what diversity and respect for others mean to us and what it means for the city.
The museum will welcome over 200,000 visitors a year, half of whom will be North Texas students.
"We strive to create "upstanders" who will stand up to hatred and prejudice, rather than bystanders who choose not to act," says Higgins.
The museum will feature interactive technology, a bigger library and archive, and genuine artifacts, such as an original boxcar used by the Nazis to transport Jews.
Holocaust survivor Max Glauben lost his family after they were taken from Warsaw to the Majdenek concentration camp. He says the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum will hopefully teach empathy and goodness in a world that can be cruel.
"If goodness prevails you can replenish loved ones that you've lost," he says.
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