Reflect on The Exhibit

This exhibit touches on many themes relevant for understanding our lives and the world around us. Explore the objects that comprise the exhibit in new ways by joining the global dialogue below.

Home Identity

Name Change Deposition

On March 25, 1953, Benzion Peresecki had his final name change. This time, he was choosing it for himself.

Why do you think Benzion would want to change his name? How do you think taking a new name would affect his identity? How would it relate to his memories of childhood when he no longer shares the last name of his deceased father and brother?

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Family Home

Immigration Sponsorship Form

This 'Individual Assurance by Relative' form (affidavit) is a guarantee to U.S. immigration authorities that Ben Peresecki will be gainfully employed upon his arrival and will not become a burden on the state. This document was a crucial step in ensuring that Ben and his mother could immigrate to the United States.

By signing this document in 1948, Izzy Doubler, Ben’s uncle, ensured that Ben and his mother would have their first home since they were rounded up by their Lithuanian neighbors in July 1945. Why do you think they did not simply return to Lithuania? Do you think it should be so hard for war refugees […]

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Home

Peresecki Wedding

Ben Peres and Chaya Eisental married on September 4, 1961 at the Concourse Paradise Theater in the Bronx. Chaya had recently moved to New York from Israel to be with Ben.

What do you remember about your own, or know about your parent’s wedding? What seems similar or different in Ben and Chaya’s wedding ceremony and reception? Does anything about it signify to you that this couple, and most of their guests, endured staggering personal and familial trauma, due to the Holocaust, in the past two […]

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