Dallas joined the world in remembering victims and and survivors of the Holocaust on Thursday.
The Dallas Holocaust Museum held a Remembrance Ceremony at 6:30 p.m. at Temple Shalom at 6930 Alpha Road in Dallas.
In Downtown Dallas, children's artwork dating back to the 1940s is part of the museum's permanent collection at 211 North Record Street. In one piece of art, a 10-year-old boy drew a boxcar from his view at a concentration camp.
Boxcars in Nazi Germany helped take millions of Jews, gays, political prisoners and others to death camps between 1933 and 1945.
"They were attacked for who they were -- their soul," said Alice Murray, president and CEO of the Dallas Holocaust Museum. "Just use the lessons of the Holocaust, the hatefulness, to understand you can't stand by and do nothing. That's the lesson in the museum."
Each year, 40,000 North Texas schoolchildren come to the museum to see, listen and learn.
"That Hitler gained control so fast, and when you realize that, you can teach that lesson now and bring mindfulness, awareness to anything that you see that is hurtful, hateful and discriminatory," Murray said.
Murray said she knows the lessons hit home when she receives letters from children who have talked with a Holocaust survivor.
"And you get a letter that says, 'Thank you so much, Max, for telling me what happened to you as a 10-year-old. Because I am 10, and I go home many times and I might say, "I hate my brother, I hate my sister," and I don't mean it. And I'll never say it again when I see you've lost your whole family,'" Murray said.
