‘Triumph in Tragedy’ exhibit tours Arizona

The Arizona Jewish Historical Society and the Hilton Family Holocaust Education Center are launching a “Triumph in Tragedy” exhibit to communities across Arizona from late 2025 through 2026.

“Triumph in Tragedy” is a multi-venue traveling exhibit series sharing personal artifacts and rarely shared survivor stories. The exhibit will travel to Phoenix, Tempe, Tucson and Flagstaff, where it will feature different paired stories of Holocaust survivors and the individuals who shaped their journeys. This exhibit shows how human connection and courage endured even amid persecution and loss.

Talli Dippold, Executive Director of the Hilton Family Holocaust Education Center, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss the exhibit.

“We wanted to make sure we are still out in the community reminding everyone and educating that these stories that we’re talking about happened to individuals locally,” Dippold said.

Hilton Family Holocaust Education Center has partnered with different organizations where the exhibits will be shown for a prolonged period of time. Dippold emphasized how important artifacts are to telling a story, as they accompany each exhibit.

“When students and community members go and visit, there’s an exhibit that includes specific stories of the liberation, or of a moment that occurred to these survivors with their liberators,” Dippold said, “and then the artifacts speak for themselves.”

Dippold explained how the companion stories that go along with the exhibits are crucial to getting a better understanding.

One companion story involves Margo Frank, the younger sister of Anne Frank who famously left her entire life story in a diary. Margo had gone through a similar experience as she hid in the annex with her sister and the rest of their family. After the family was discovered and captures, Margo ended up passing away from Typhus in Bergen-Belsen, the Nazi concentration camp.

The story pairs her with a student that she knew at the time, who remembers Margo as being very quiet and shy.

“Margo passed away very close to liberation, and so this is also a story about how certain circumstances that were very random allowed some people to survive,” Dippold said. “We want to make sure we keep the legacy alive.”

Dippold said she wants Arizonans to understand these stories involve their neighbors and community members. They put this exhibit out into the community because that’s where they want people to engage with the stories.

“These are stories of individuals who lived in this area,” Dippold said. “They all have a personal connection to Phoenix, and even though it seems like it happened very long ago, when you learn the stories, you realize this wasn’t very long ago; this also affected our local community.”