ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – The Jewish Community Center and the New Mexico Holocaust Museum worked together on a new exhibit to honor a Holocaust victim: Lita Blake. Lena S. Keslin and her husband Michael assisted the museum through photos and a multimedia presentation to tell the “hidden stories of Lita Blake.”
Lita Blake fled Austria in 1938 to Brazil, then to New York, and finally ended up in Santa Fe.
“It’s an important story to understand the plight of those who survived and what their lives were like before they left. These were affluent, professional people living in Vienna. A wonderful life. They traveled around Europe. That was all ripped away, and they had to, you know, get out,” said Chief Programs Officer Phyllis Wolf.
The exhibit was inspired by the photo albums that Carl and Lita Blake donated to the museum along with documents that detailed their escape Lena Keslin then enlarged the photos and imagined Lita’s response to each of them, which was inspired by the two’s many conversations they had over the years. Lita passed away in 2007 at the age of 104.
It will be open to the public through April at the New Mexico Jewish Community Center in the Northeast Heights.