Exhibition open from 28 October 2025 – 18 January 2026

Coming Soon

This series of intimate portraits by Anita Lester honours 16 Holocaust survivors from Melbourne, whose lives were rebuilt through family, community and culture. Through these paintings, their faces and stories embody resilience, vitality, and the ongoing responsibility to remember. This exhibition invites visitors to encounter these survivors not just as subjects of history, but as living witnesses.   

Anita Lester is a multidisciplinary artist based in Melbourne, Australia, working across music, film, painting, poetry, and illustration. Her practice is grounded in storytelling first and foremost, resisting easy categorisation – marked by both a technical precision and a deep emotional intelligence that connects across forms. 

Whether through image, word, sound, or line, Anita’s work continues to ask essential questions – about memory, faith, and how we carry culture through rupture and reinvention.

 

Visitor Information

Recommended for all ages

Allow up to 45 minutes

Location: Alter Family Special Exhibitions Gallery, Melbourne Holocaust Museum

Tickets: Adults $15 | Concessions $12  


 

An exhibition by Anita Lester in partnership with the Melbourne Holocaust Museum.

EXHIBITION PRODUCED BY

THIS EXHIBITION WAS MADE POSSIBLE WITH SINCERE APPRECIATION TO OUR PARTNER

 

 

 

WITH HEARTFELT THANKS TO THE SURVIVORS AND THEIR FAMILIES FOR SHARING THEIR STORIES

Nina Bassat AM
Thomas (Tommy) Moses Beck
Ester Braitberg
Sonja Cowan
Wolf Deane
Elka Ekstein
Sally Felzen
Abram Goldberg OAM
Dita Gould
Ken Hamer
Berni Hamersfeld
Luba Olenski
Alex (Sany) Heimler
Vivienne Spiegel
Magda Steiner
Celina Widawski

 

MELBOURNE HOLOCAUST MUSEUM TEAM

Ellen Bradley
Dr Steve Cooke
Dr Breann Fallon
Dr Daniel Haumschild
Alice McInnes
Tegan Thompson
CompNow
Space Arrangers
Studio Tweed
Synthesis Design+Build

 

ANITA LESTER TEAM

Ben Gibson and Skye Jefferys at Gallery Jones
Goldberg Family
Dena Lester
James McPherson
Melbourne Studio of Art
Gideon Preiss
Alan and Sandra Preiss

 

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