In my project, I show how much my family has had to flee around the world. My father, grandparents, and all my great-grandparents, were all refugees. In the Haggadah we are commanded to remember the refugee experience: "In every generation a man must see himself as if he had come out of Egypt." The Haggadah commands us not only to remember, but also to tell the story, our own 'Exodus'. So for my project I made dolls — one for each of my great-grandparents — that tell of their 'Exodus': their exile and how they built new lives, even in difficult times. In addition, I put loose buttons inside the suitcase, to shows us that even though their lives have ended and their stories are complete, we are still building our stories. We try to build ourselves with heroism and power like them, which is why I chose to present my family's story like this.
My family story
By Manuel Hirsch Grosskopf