Survivor Max Glauben, who helped found Dallas Holocaust museum, dies at 94

DALLAS  — Max Glauben, a Holocaust survivor who tirelessly shared his story and was among the founders of the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, died Thursday. He was 94.

Glauben, a longtime Dallas resident, died after being diagnosed with cancer, a museum spokesman said.

Glauben is among Holocaust survivors who had their recollections recorded by the USC Shoah Foundation in a way that will allow future generations to ask his image questions.

“Max embodied the spirit of resiliency. He turned the atrocities inflicted upon him, his family, and six million Jews during the Holocaust into a message of kindness, love, and optimism,” Mary Pat Higgins, president and CEO of the museum, said in a statement.

Glauben told The Associated Press for a story in 2019 that after losing his family in the Holocaust, he told himself he would “do anything possible to educate the people and let them know what kind of tragedy this was.”

Glauben was born on Jan. 14, 1928, and grew up in Poland. He was 11 when World War II began. He survived the Warsaw Ghetto and Nazi concentration camps. His parents and younger brother were killed.

Max Glauben tells his story of survival (photo credit: Courtesy)

He was on a death march to the Dachau concentration camp when he was liberated by the US Army on April 23, 1945, the museum said.

He immigrated to the US in 1947, served in the US Army and moved to Dallas, where he and his wife, Frieda, raised a family.

In 2019, The Dallas Morning News named him its Texan of the Year.

Glauben’s death came as Israel’s national Holocaust memorial day was marked on Thursday.