HMH - eNewsletter April 2015

AROUND HMH

Volunteer Tour Guides Needed Holocaust Museum Houston is now accepting applications for tour guides, commonly called docents, to help teach students and other visitors the dangers of hatred, prejudice and apathy. Volunteers will be trained in the history of theHolocaust and taught to give tours as volunteer guides during five weeks of training. This year’s class will meet Mondays and Wednesdays from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. from Aug. 3 through Sept. 2, 2015. Applications must be received by May 1, 2015. All classes will be held at the Museum’s Morgan Family Center, 5401 Caroline St., in Houston’s Museum District. Volunteers must be available for tours during the day on weekdays. Docents must commit to giving tours for a one-year period. Weekday docents generally give one two-hour tour per week. During the school year, 20,000 to 30,000 students in middle school, high school or college will tour the Museum and more than 140,000 adults from around the world will visit. Tours are conducted every day, and several schools may be represented on any day. “I decided to be a docent when I retired from teaching and I wanted to do two things: give back to the community and continue to work with students,” current Docent Diane Merrill said. “As a teacher, I taught a six-week unit on the Holocaust to 10th-grade students, and it made me aware how powerful a tool the Holocaust is for making positive changes in the lives of students.” For more information on becoming a docent, email volunteers@hmh.org or call 713-527-1602. The Museum’s docent training program is generously underwritten by the Emil and Anna Steinberger Endowment Fund.

Docent Madeline Podorzer guided a Spanish-language tour for 27 Hispanic leaders of various churches in November.

25-year-old “Captain Neil,” an active-duty captain in the Israeli navy who participated in Operation Protective Edge during the summer of 2014, met with Holocaust Survivor Zoly Zamir prior to a joint program with the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces in February.

Artist Pauline Jakobsberg, second from left, met with friends and family members prior to the opening of “Birthrights Left Behind.”

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