A shorter name and a new look

Thirty years ago our founders, the Smith family, planted a seed of hope.

They hoped, as a Christian family, to befriend Jewish survivors of the Holocaust living in Britain. They hoped to make their own home a home-from-home for these remarkable but overlooked people - a place of peace and healing. They hoped schoolchildren would come and learn from them. And then, as the survivors entrusted the objects and photographs behind their stories to us for posterity - they hoped this place of learning would blossom into a museum, with exhibitions and events for the general public to come and see too.

Marina, Stephen & James Smith's hope became a reality. Today, we remain Britain's only museum wholly dedicated to the Holocaust. We run touring exhibitions and school programmes around the country. And we are proud to be one of the Arts Council's National Portfolio Organisations.

For all these reasons, we've shortened our name to: National Holocaust Museum.

We have changed our logo too. There is no better symbol of the Smith family's vision than a white rose. For a start, there are over 1,200 of them in our beautiful memorial gardens. Each was planted in memory of victims murdered in the Holocaust.

Each tells a story of love, loss and resilience. For thirty years, we have lovingly tended these roses, watching them re-bloom each summer. It seems a fitting metaphor of renewal. Of the rebirth of hope. And of the need to keep cultivating it.

As the Smiths demonstrated, hope is not an idle wish. It is a series of actions. It means preserving the truth about the horrors of the Holocaust, while preserving a respect for truth in the present. After all, truth has become a fragile thing in this social media age. The Holocaust shows what can happen if we let truth wither; if we allow conspiracy theories and hate-mongering to grow over it.

The Smith family planted a seed. It grew into something beautiful. The white rose symbolises both that beauty and the perennial need to cultivate and protect it.