A major exhibit honoring Holocaust survivors will open in St. Louis this spring. “Lest We Forget,” a photo installation by German Italian photographer and filmmaker Luigi Toscano, opens April 16 at The District in Chesterfield and will be on display through May 3.
Since 2014, Toscano has traveled the world photographing Holocaust survivors, capturing their faces and stories with sensitivity and care. The St. Louis edition features 12 local survivors, photographed during his first trip here in May 2022. Later that year, a version of “Lest We Forget” appeared at Washington University, drawing 80,000 visitors and connecting audiences with these remarkable personal histories.
The newly-updated exhibit, which features 100 large portraits of survivors, will be supported by a robust line-up of programs and events geared to Holocaust education. They include a film screening and panel discussion of the “Lest We Forget” documentary, and a Yom HaShoah symphony shabbat at Congregation Temple Israel, featuring members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
This version of “Lest We Forget” was arranged by the Hans and Berthold Finkelstein Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Bayer, the global pharmaceutical and life sciences company, focused on a culture of remembrance. A similar exhibit was set at the company’s worldwide headquarters in Leverkusen, Germany in 2025. Creating awareness about the horrors of the Holocaust is a goal for Bayer, said Annemarie Hühne-Ramm, managing director of the Finkelstein Foundation.
“We wanted to do something for the whole city of Leverkusen to commemorate the end of World War II in Europe,” Hühne-Ramm said. “Not only remembering, but also facing antisemitism, hatred, and discrimination. We are also sending a sign to other companies to face their history, do something against hate and come to terms with their Nazi past.
ADVERTISEMENT
“As a foundation, we want to spread out our activity,” she said. “Luigi had a wonderful previous exhibition in St. Louis, and I said, ‘St. Louis would be great, because this is one of our biggest sites. We have many employees here.’”
Bayer’s crop science headquarters is located in Creve Coeur. Supporting “Lest We Forget” is consistent with the company’s mission, said Matthias Berninger, executive vice president and head of public affairs, sustainability and safety.
“It is important to us to support efforts that strengthen resilience against antisemitism and other hateful ideologies,” Berninger said. “With the support of the Hans and Berthold Finkelstein Foundation, Bayer works to help ensure that Holocaust survivors’ stories are never forgotten, as in this exhibition, and that their lessons guide future generations.”
The Finkelstein Foundation
In 2023, Bayer established the Hans and Berthold Finkelstein Foundation to eliminate hatred and recognize the company’s past crimes during national socialism, especially forced labor at IG Farben.
Dr. Hans Finkelstein was a noted chemist who worked for IG Farben, the European pharmaceutical giant. In 1910, he developed an efficient method for synthesizing iodine compounds, which came to be known as the “Finkelstein reaction.” Despite his accomplishments and contributions to science, Finklestein had Jewish ancestry.
“He came from a Jewish family,” explained Hühne-Ramm. “The family converted when he was 10 years old, so he was not raised Jewish. But the Nazis said to him, ‘You are Jewish.’ They said to him, ‘You have to leave the company.’ The Nazi authorities also kept his passport, so he had no opportunity. He was a man without a country, and he decided to commit suicide.”
Focus on Holocaust education
The timing of the exhibit is intentional, opening during Holocaust Education Week. Holocaust education is mandated by Missouri legislation signed into law in 2022 that also requires Holocaust education curriculum for grades 6-12.
During the upcoming exhibit, plans call for ad hoc education efforts geared to students and their parents, according to Fran Levine, former interim executive director of the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum.
“The St. Louis County libraries are going to be doing books for kids and adults about the Holocaust, and we’ve arranged bus transportation from several locations to the exhibit,” Levine said. “Luigi will also be taking two smaller exhibits of 20 portraits out to the Sedalia School District and the Houston R-1 School District (south of Fort Leonard Wood).”
That mobile exhibit will create an interactive education experience, according to Dee Dee Simon, chair of the Missouri Holocaust Education and Awareness Commission.
“We want to allow students to create programming around the exhibit,” Simon said. “The students can take the information that they have about the survivors and incorporate it into music classes, art classes and theater. Our game plan is to engage some very passionate teachers that we have discovered through the commission’s professional development workshop.”
Toscano is eager to bring his work back to Missouri. He hopes visitors to the exhibit can learn from the past.
“It is so necessary that we talk to each other,” Toscano said. “In conversation, we can build tolerance. We must create bridges. And one of the bridges may be my exhibition. Tolerance and respect—when we lose that, we are gone.”
Hühne-Ramm suggested the exhibit ideally will bring people together to talk and learn.
“For schools, the main thing is to raise attention to the Holocaust,” she said. “It’s about hatred today. It starts slowly, but if you look around the world, it’s increasing and we have to do something by going into the public and take the exhibition to the younger people.”
The upcoming exhibit may also serve as a model for use in other areas of the country, according to Dee Dee Simon.
“Luigi’s intention is that he wants to pass this on,” she said. “If it is successful here in Missouri, his dream is to have it throughout the United States.”
‘Lest We Forget’
WHEN: Opens April 16, runs through May 3
WHERE: The District in Chesterfield
MORE INFO: Visit conversationbuildscharacter.org/lest-we-forget/ for more information on the exhibit and related programming.
RELATED EVENTS:
Film screening and panel discussion:
Sunday, April 19 the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum will hold a free film screening of the documentary “Lest We Forget,” which explores the creation of the exhibition. The event will include a panel discussion with photographer Luigi Toscano; Dee Dee Simon, chair of the Missouri Holocaust Education and Awareness Commission; and Oskar Jakob, a local Holocaust survivor whose portrait is included in the exhibition. After the panel, a 2 p.m. bus will depart for a guided tour of the exhibition at The District with Luigi Toscano. The bus will return to the Museum at approximately 4:30 p.m. (bus tickets are $22 and include transportation and a boxed lunch. Bus tickets must be purchased in advance). Visit https://bit.ly/4mgRCLo
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra Shabbat:
On Friday, April 17, Congregation Temple Israel hosts a Yom HaShoah symphony Shabbat, featuring members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. At 6 p.m. there will be a pre-oneg with refreshments; then by a 6:30 Shabbat service followed by a dessert oneg; from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. the symphony musicians will lead Holocaust Composer Stories: Pavel Haas. RSVP is required. Visit www.ti-stl.org/event/shabbat-services146.html
Sponsors of the public exhibition are Bayer, Conversation Builds Character (a Missouri-based Holocaust awareness nonprofit organization) and the Staenberg Family Foundation.
ADVERTISEMENT
