Stories of Survival: A Special Exhibition Launch Event

Stories of Survival: Object . Image . Memory showcases more than 60 personal items brought to America by Survivors of the Holocaust and genocide. Exploring the relationship between objects, their meaning to the original owner and subsequent significance, each artifact is dramatically paired with oversized photographs by renowned documentarian Jim Lommasson with handwritten responses by Survivors or their family members. The objects are as every day as a baby doll and a black suitcase and as symbolic as a young mother’s cookbook and a wedding announcement—saved by local Survivors from genocides around the world. And though the objects and memories start from very different origins, from Germany to Belgium to Armenia to Syria, common threads bind them all together. These are the threads that bind us all, the common story of moving to a new land, building a new life, yet holding on to the past. We are all connected to these stories; we have them in our own families. They are the commonality of an immigrant experience, an American experience.

Stories of Survival: Object . Image . Memory is a project of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center and photographer Jim Lommasson.