In the last decades of the 20th c. and following
2000, a real 'boom' in founding Jewish museums throughout
Europe could be observed. A lot of new institutions were
established, and old ones were modernized. All this
resulting from the growing urge to overcome silence over
the Holocaust, to square up with the past, and to open the
debate on the multiethnicity of the history of Europe. This,
in turn, was favoured by the occurring phenomena: Europe’s
integration, the fall of the Iron Curtain, and the development
of democratic civil societies.
New Jewish museums established in Europe, though
inevitably making a reference to the Shoah, are not Holocaust
museums as such, and they do not tell the story of the
genocide. Their goal is mainly to restore the memory of the
centuries of the Jewish presence in a given country, region,
and town: they tell this story as part of the history of the given
place, and aim at having it incorporated into the official national
history. Moreover, their mission is to show the presence and
importance of the Jewish heritage in today’s world, as well as
to ask questions related to Jewish identity in contemporary
Europe. The civilizational conflicts that arose after the relatively
peaceful 1990s, outlined a new framework for the activity of
Jewish museums which, interestingly, gradually go beyond
the peculiar Jewish experience in order to reach a universal
level. With such activities they try to promote pluralism and
multicultural experience, shape inclusive attitudes, give voice
to minorities, speak out against all the manifestations of
discrimination and exclusion. Since these museums deal with
such sensitive challenging issues, they have to well master the
structure of their message on every level: that of architecture,
script, exhibition layout, and accompanying programmes,
thanks to which they unquestionably contribute to creating
new standards and marking out new trends in today’s
museology as well as in museum learning.
Gabriel N. Finder, Alexander V. Prusin, Justice behind the Iron Curtain: Nazis on Trial in Communist Poland; Andrew Kornbluth, The August Trials: The Holocaust and Postwar Justice in Poland [Katarzyna Person]
