Remembering

Alumna Jamie Flores keeps the memory of the Holocaust alive in El Paso.

By Texas Tech University

January 27^th, 2023

Jamie Flores graduated from Texas Tech University in 2007 with a dual degree in journalism and history with special focus on European history, so she knew a lot about the Holocaust. Her interest in this time period drew her to apply for a job at the El Paso Holocaust Museum in 2008, and her academic knowledge secured her the role of education director. But no amount of lectures or research could prepare her for a first-person account of the horrors that took place from the museum’s founder, Henry Kellen.

“People were being rounded up and treated like animals,” said Jamie Flores, now executive director of the museum. “They were forced to pack only one suitcase. During tours, we ask students, ‘What would you take if you only had a few minutes to pack one suitcase?’”

“The same kids he grew up with were standing outside clapping, I can’t imagine being a teenager, seeing the kids you’ve played with applauding you being kicked out of your home,” Flores said about the the experiences of Tibor Schaechner, the museum’s last local survivor.

“Kellen taught me so much,” Flores said. “He would walk me through the museum and show me artifacts that he personally owned. His family pictures were all over the museum. Kellen told her how he was affected when the Germans invaded Lithuania in 1941. His family, along with 30,000 other Jews, were forced into the Kovno Ghetto. “I would just sit and cry, listening to him talk about the atrocities he witnessed,” Flores said.

To Flores, the white walls of the memorial room and the accompanying exhibits are both somber and hopeful, because they do not only share names – they share stories. “The number of 6 million deaths is massive,” Flores said. “No one can wrap their heads around that. But if we can get visitors to connect with somebody who experienced or who was killed in the Holocaust, then that’s the first step to building an understanding and crossing the history of the Holocaust over to problems we’re seeing today: discrimination, prejudice, racism and antisemitism.”