Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum<\/a>, said Steinhart is a steadfast tour de force in financial matters and well as a spiritual leader.<\/p>\nHe co-chaired a capital campaign that raised $85 million to build the current museum that opened in downtown seven years ago.<\/p>\n
![\"Ron]()
<\/p>\n
Ron Steinhart next to his late wife, Phyllis, with Mary Pat Higgins, CEO of Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum at a grand opening event in September 2019.<\/p>\n
Amanda Lynn Harris<\/p>\n
\u201cRon\u2019s leadership is the reason we were so successful in building this museum,\u201d she said. \u201cMany, many people supported our project because of their respect for him. He was also single-minded about demanding that we not break ground until all of the campaign objectives were met\u00a0\u2014 which included building an endowment and setting up an operating reserve.\u201d<\/p>\n
They are also dear friends despite their age difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Ron commits to you as a person, he\u2019s a lifelong friend,\u201d the 42-year-old said. \u201cI think he wakes up in the morning thinking about what he can do to help someone. I\u2019m so fortunate to be one of the people he thinks of and supports.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steinhart also has personal priorities.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s an ardent UT Longhorn football fan. So much so that he arranged his Germany itinerary to be back for what turned out to be a disappointing last-minute shocker against the Oklahoma Sooners at the Cotton Bowl.<\/p>\n
Star of David miracle<\/p>\n
The Steinhart entourage spent three days in Dresden, visiting the sites where he\u2019d placed stones; Rosa Steinhart Strasse, the street named for his great aunt, and the New Jewish Cemetery where 11 family members who died before 1939 are buried.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They also went to the New Synagogue built in 2001 on the site of the Semper Synagogue that burned down on Kristallnacht. Its centerpiece is a 27-inch, glass-enshrined miracle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alfred Neugebauer, a Jewish firefighter, braved flames during Kristallnacht to rescue the Star of David from its spire. The 24-year-old hid it under a woodpile at his home and returned it to Jewish leaders after the war.<\/p>\n
The Steinharts also visited the site of the detention camp where family members were imprisoned in unimaginable conditions, and the site of the former Zeiss\u2011Ikon Goehle plant where those detainees were forced to make Nazi war munitions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also went to the Dresden Neustadt Train Station from where many of our family members were deported to concentration camps,\u201d he said. \u201cAt a time when the Jewish community is witnessing rising antisemitism, it was heartening to see a community of people who remember and still care.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tale of Uncle Sol<\/p>\n
In an unexpected twist of fate, Steinhart owes his existence to Kristallnacht \u2014 also known as The Night of Broken Glass \u2014 official start of the Nazi reign of terror.<\/p>\n
His 20-something parents, Marga Goldblum and Werner Steinhart, were on their honeymoon in Switzerland when all hell broke loose in Dresden.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The synagogue where they married just six days before was burned to the ground, as were shops and businesses. The headstones of the Jewish cemetery were toppled and destroyed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks to my mother\u2019s successful uncle, Sol Katzenstein, who immigrated to the United States when he was 18 in 1888, my parents escaped Germany with two suitcases just 10 days after returning from their honeymoon,\u201d Steinhart recalled.<\/p>\n
Uncle Sol moved to the small East Texas town ironically named Palestine, which had a growing Jewish community, and formed a company making pajamas.<\/p>\n
\u201cUncle Sol became known as the \u2018Pajama King,\u2019 \u201d Steinhart said. \u201cHe became very wealthy, eventually sold the business for a large sum.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As restrictions tightened on German Jews wanting to flee to the United States, they had to find a rich person willing to guarantee their full financial support. \u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Ron]()
<\/p>\n
Ron Steinhart delivers his speech at the Marta Fraenkel Auditorium of the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden with his German interpreter, Louise Wolfram on Oct. 7, 2026.<\/p>\n
Sebastian Kahnert<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of his caring heart and financial capability, Uncle Sol was able to guarantee the entry of 400 Jews who were in his family\u00a0\u2014 including my parents\u00a0\u2014 or lived in the small German community where he was born,\u201d Steinhart said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout him, my parents would have died in the Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n
At 86, Steinhart isn\u2019t ready to hang it up.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy footprints are all over the\u00a0internet,\u201d he said. \u201cI still retain a Dallas genealogist who informs me whenever there is new information about my Steinhart or Goldblum sides of my tree.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get inquiries from descendants seeking my help for information about their relatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I get notified from ancestry sites whenever anything is added to either side of my family tree.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I’m definitely still in the hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ron Steinhart delivers his speech at the Marta Fraenkel Auditorium of the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden on Oct. 7,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-476244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}