NARRATOR During the Holocaust, 1.5 million children died at the hands of Nazis and their collaborators. At Holocaust Museum Houston and around the world, these children are symbolized with butterflies. Architect Mark Mucasey explains how the Butterfly Vault, found at the entrance to the museum’s campus, honors these children. MARK Holocaust Museum Houston embarked on a project to memorialize the 1.5 million children. They encouraged people from six continents around the world to create their own butterflies, and it took off like wildfire. They submitted thousands and thousands of butterflies each month. These were handmade, children-made, adult-made art pieces. We collected them, and about three years ago we reached a full 1.5 million butterflies, handmade, that we had collected in this project. NARRATOR Museum CEO, Kelly Zúñiga: KELLY So, we're really pleased because it represents a soul. It represents a child that was lost, each individual butterfly. MARK I think a visitor is going to need to try to get their hands around the incredible effort that it took for a countless number of people to create this collection of a million and a half pieces of art. They were handmade pieces of art. I think somebody needs to just contemplate this effort that took place over six continents in the world, that all converged at Holocaust Museum Houston, NARRATOR CEO Dr. Kelly Zúñiga speaks to the impact of one of the butterflies from the project: KELLY There's a real special one that I keep in my office, which came from an elementary school in Belarus. And it made me feel so good that our story and curriculum was benefiting somebody that really was a member of the Eastern Bloc, not so long ago. And they sent me the most beautiful pink butterfly that came out of the project. So I keep that in my office. It's really beautiful