Building a Permanent Home for Holocaust Memory in San Diego
RUTH is working toward a permanent Holocaust museum in San Diego centered on survivor testimony, historical evidence, education, reflection, and moral responsibility.
The project grows from the RUTH traveling exhibition and its focus on survivors who rebuilt their lives in Southern California. The permanent museum is envisioned as a place where personal stories, artifacts, scholarship, and immersive interpretation come together for students, educators, families, visitors, and the broader community.
See the Vision for the Future Museum
This video presents the current conceptual vision for RUTH’s permanent museum. It illustrates the intended visitor journey and spatial experience. Architecture, materials, gallery configuration, exhibit design, and final dimensions may continue to evolve as the project advances.
If the embedded player is blocked by your browser or preview environment, you can watch the same video directly on YouTube.
Watch on YouTube ↗Conceptual museum schematics — for planning and visualization purposes. Final design subject to development, approvals, and fabrication requirements.
From historical evidence to personal testimony to responsibility.
Holocaust History Galleries
A chronological journey through antisemitism, the rise of Nazism, persecution, ghettos and deportations, mass murder, resistance, liberation, and the postwar period.
RUTH Core Exhibition
The emotional heart of the museum, expanding Sandra Scheller’s survivor-centered RUTH exhibition through testimony, personal artifacts, photographs, documents, and San Diego stories.
Antisemitism & Historical Distortion
Interpretive galleries examining the history of antisemitism, Holocaust denial and distortion, and the responsibility to recognize and confront hate.
Rotating Exhibition Gallery
A flexible space for temporary exhibitions, scholarship, contemporary art, youth-curated work, and themes connected to Holocaust memory and civic responsibility.
Education Center
Dedicated space for school visits, teacher professional development, workshops, university collaboration, public programs, and bilingual learning.
Reflection Area
A quiet environment where visitors can process the experience, honor victims and survivors, and consider the choices individuals and communities make in the face of hatred.
A local story with global relevance.
RUTH is rooted in the experiences of Holocaust survivors who made San Diego and Southern California their home. Their lives connect global Holocaust history to the region in a direct and deeply personal way.
The museum is also envisioned as an educational bridge for the broader San Diego community, schools across the region, university audiences, and cross-border communities in Baja California.
What the permanent museum is being built to do
- Preserve survivor testimony and material evidence
- Expand Holocaust education for K–12 students
- Provide teacher training and bilingual resources
- Support academic and community partnerships
- Confront antisemitism and historical denial
- Create a lasting place for reflection and remembrance
A phased path to opening.
Foundation
Governance, planning, seed fundraising, institutional relationships, and schematic design.
Development
Site build-out, exhibition development, digital infrastructure, education planning, and core staffing.
Launch Preparation
Exhibit installation, visitor systems, staff training, school bookings, testing, and donor and educator previews.
Grand Opening
Public opening, full educational programming, rotating exhibitions, public events, and ongoing museum operations.
Help give memory a permanent address.
RUTH’s museum project depends on founding donors, community partners, educators, institutions, and supporters who believe that Holocaust memory and survivor testimony must remain accessible to future generations.