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Holocaust Survivor Robbed of Teaching Materials

Dallas Holocaust Museum offers $1,000 reward for Max Glauben’s valuables

by
Stephanie Butnick
February 25, 2014
Max Glauben stands in front of photographs taken of him and his mother and brother in Poland at the Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education on Feb. 20, 2014. (David Woo/AP)
Max Glauben stands in front of photographs taken of him and his mother and brother in Poland at the Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education on Feb. 20, 2014. (David Woo/AP)

The thieves who broke into Max Glauben’s 2007 Cadillac outside his home in Dallas, TX, and grabbed two leather bags from the backseat couldn’t have known just how valuable the contents of those bags were. Glauben, an 86-year-old retired garment-supply store owner, is a Holocaust survivor from Poland who regularly speaks to groups of students who visit the Dallas Holocaust Museum. The bags were filled with photos and mementos he uses as visual aids to tell his story, USA Today reports.

“I pulled this (seat) down like that, and I said ‘Oh my God,’ ” Glauben said as he prepared to head off to another Holocaust speaking engagement. “There were two bags here,” leather satchels that he had put in the trunk overnight in preparation for his talk.



Inside those bags were medals, mementos, DVDs and photographs — including a video that German officials recorded of him in the 1940s.

In addition to archival material, Glauben also kept keepsake items like a photograph of him with Elie Wiesel, and one of him and George W. Bush, in the bags to show students, according to the Dallas News.

The Dallas Holocaust Museum has offered a $1,000 reward to anyone who returns Glauben’s priceless belongings, pledging to ask no questions of the returnee.

Stephanie Butnick is chief strategy officer of Tablet Magazine, co-founder of Tablet Studios, and a host of the Unorthodox podcast.