Dr. Gerald Holton Collection

Gerhard Holzapfel (later Dr. Gerald Holton) was born on May 23, 1922 in Berlin, to Austrian parents, Emanuel and Regina. The family returned to Vienna, and shortly after the Anschluss in 1938 Gerald and his brother Heinz (later Edgar Holton) left for England as part of the Kindertransports. They joined their parents in the United States in 1940. Gerald studied at Wesleyan University and Harvard, and later became a physicist and professor and historian. Along with a sociologist, Dr. Gerhard Sonnert, Dr. Holton initiated Project Second Wave, a long-term study of the achievements of refugees who came to the United States as children before and during World War II.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Gerald Holton

Donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by Dr. Gerald Holton in November 2015.