Food and Family Ties


Honoring Holocaust Memory through Rescued Recipes

Imagine stepping back in time to savor the flavors of childhood, evoking fond memories that reconnect you to your homeland before it was lost to the Holocaust.

Auschwitz survivor Steven Fenves, whose family was forced from their Subotica, Yugoslavia, home into a Jewish ghetto in 1944, donated his mother’s recipe book to the Museum. His family’s former cook had bravely rescued the book while neighbors looted their apartment.

Learn more about Steven, his family’s story, and how and why James Beard Award–winning Chef Alon Shaya recreated dishes inspired by Fenves recipes.

Events to Benefit the Museum


If you have additional questions, please contact Jed Silberg with the Museum’s Midwest Regional Office at 312.905.5459 or [email protected].

Upcoming Events

Request an email update for details as we confirm events planned for 2024 in Denver.


Support the Museum's Rescued Recipes Initiative to help ensure the permanence of Holocaust memory and expand the collection of record on the Holocaust.



Media Coverage

Read some of the articles about how Steven and Chef Alon have collaborated to preserve Holocaust memory, the foods of a shared history, and the meaningful recollections they represent.


For media inquiries, please contact Raymund Flandez, the Museum's senior communications officer, at [email protected].

CBS Sunday Morning

“Remembrance: Recreating a Jewish family's recipes”
Watch Video

Washington Post

“A Holocaust survivor, a rescued family cookbook, and the taste of home”
Read Article

NBC Today

“This chef worked with a Holocaust survivor to re-create the lost recipes of his childhood”
Read Article

The Times of Israel

“Star chef Alon Shaya helps Holocaust survivor recreate recipes from prewar youth”
Read Article

The Hollywood Reporter

“Phil Rosenthal and Alon Shaya to Host Rescued Recipes Fundraising Dinner in Los Angeles”
Read Article

Featured from Our Collection

Fenyves Family Recipe Book

Leaf through the pages of this treasured artifact. Under “Supplementary Materials,” read Steven’s 13-page English commentary.

“My mother was … very talented”

During a 2017 interview for First Person: Conversations with Holocaust Survivors, Steven discusses his experiences, including his separation from his mother, whom he never saw again.

“[T]he doors opened and we were in Auschwitz”

In this 2005 oral history, Steven tells his account of surviving a death march to Buchenwald, liberation by American forces, and reuniting with his sister and father.

“Traces of a Mother's Life”

Explore the exhibition Some Were Neighbors: Choice, Human Behavior, and the Holocaust, which includes information about Steven’s mother, Klara, his sister, Estera, and their former cook, Maris.

About the Museum

A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum inspires citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity.

The Collection of Record on the Holocaust

The Museum's David M. Rubenstein National Institute for Holocaust Documentation houses an unparalleled repository of Holocaust evidence.