Siblings David and Susan Lowenberg of San Francisco have gifted more than $1 million to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., to establish the William J. Lowenberg Memorial Fellowship on America, the Holo-caust and the Jews, the museum an-nounced this week.

William J. Lowenberg

The gift will fund an annual fellowship within the museum’s Center for Advanced Holo-caust Studies, which aims to increase the vitality and impact of Holocaust studies worldwide.

William Lowenberg, a Holocaust survivor and San Francisco philanthropist who died in 2011, was a vice chairman of the museum and one of its creators.

“[That’s] why we established this fund in his memory,” David and Susan said in the release. “For our family, it is extremely important to deepen the understanding of America’s response to the Holocaust.”

William Lowenberg was appointed a vice chair of the museum’s governing council by President Ronald Reagan, and Susan Lowenberg recently was named to that council by President Barack Obama.