Holocaust Remembrance: The Pennies Project
From left: Children sit on the floor in a barracks at the Sisak concentration camp for children. Jankl Zuckerkandel died at age 3 in Sobibor. Eva and Leana Münzer were killed at Auschwitz. (Photos: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Muzej Revolucije Narodnosti Jugoslavije [barracks], courtesy of Sonni Schey Birnbaum [Zuckerkandel], courtesy of Alfred Münzer [sisters]; & Getty Images/trekandshoot [cents])
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Holocaust Remembrance: The Pennies Project

Published April 14, 2026 | Read time 2 min read

By Olivia McCommons

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On April 14, the United States Holocaust Museum will hold its annual commemoration of the Holocaust as part of the National Days of Remembrance. The event will be livestreamed from the U.S. Capitol starting at 10:30 a.m. ET and will honor the 6 million Jews who were murdered and the millions of other victims of Nazi persecution. 

In addition to the museum’s ongoing efforts to educate Americans about the Holocaust, other organizations are also working hard to spread awareness. The Unknown Child Foundation, for example, has taken a numismatic approach to remembrance involving 8,000 pounds of cents.

Unknown Child Foundation

The Unknown Child Foundation seeks to educate the public about the 1.5 million children who perished during the Holocaust. The foundation is developing a memorial that includes the collection and display of 1.5 million Lincoln cents—one for each murdered child. The Lincoln cent, designed by Jewish sculptor and engraver Victor David Brenner, holds particular symbolic importance for this effort. 

The project was launched in 2009 when a discussion between a group of students and their teachers, Susan Powell and Melissa (Swartz) Wheeler, at Horn Lake Middle School in Mississippi sparked an idea to form the “Pennies Project” to increase awareness of the Holocaust. The students wrote letters to actors, athletes, politicians, and everyone they could think of for donations. A local homeschool group joined the efforts. Word spread, and the owner of Peabody Place Mall in Memphis, Tennessee, gave the students permission to scoop up all the coins that had been thrown into its fountain. 

After three-and-a-half years, students achieved their goal of collecting 1.5 million pennies. The completion of the project led to the formation of the Unknown Child Foundation, organized for the purpose of creating a children’s Holocaust memorial. To learn more about the memorial or contribute to the Unknown Child Foundation, visit the organization’s website.