By Jane Avner, Jewish Museum Milwaukee Board of Trustees

We love this exhibit – the staff worked their hearts out.

Molly Dubin with her artistic skills to mount the panels and dresses; Ellie Gettinger reaching out to educators, creating the educators’ guide, putting together the pieces so that the Digital Humanities group from the UWM will be a contributing partner; and behind the scenes, our fearless leader Kathie Bernstein writing grants, keeping us in line, assembling a strong lay committee headed by past president Marianne Lubar who coordinated a smashing opening night. Barb Budish made sure the catalog was ready on time and looked great! Jay Hyland, editor extraordinaire, assisted in research all along the way. Thank you to Hannah Lartz for making sure all the communications were sent out on time and the events so far ran so smoothly.

Michael Berenbaum spoke to the heart of the exhibit. He really “got” it. The immigration story – how we are here because of Benedict’s choice to emigrate rather than stay. How Brigitte and Lieselotte are alive because of Kindertransport. And how Hedy’s dresses are an example of Jewish choices of “portable” professions. I’ll paraphrase something he said (I think I have this right): The Holocaust is not the story of six million who died, but a different story six million times.