The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

The holocaust and the museum world in Britain: a study of ethnography

The holocaust and the museum world in Britain: a study of ethnography
The holocaust and the museum world in Britain: a study of ethnography

The Imperial War Museum’s (IWM) permanent Holocaust exhibition opened in June 2000 to general acclaim in the media. Subsequently the exhibition, like the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, has proved immensely successful in generating visitors (over a quarter of a million in its first twelve months) and it appears to have elicited positive instant responses from them. In contrast to its American counterpart, however, there has been little questioning of the scope of the IWM exhibition or at a more basic level, whether it was appropriate in the first place. This contribution is an attempt to open up dialogue about the nature of the IWM Holocaust exhibition including the validity or otherwise of some of its items of display. It desires to situate the exhibition in wider debates than those focusing more narrowly on Holocaust commemoration. First, it places the exhibition in the context of collective memory and identity in Britain, especially in relation to the outside world and more specifically, Germanness and Jewishness. Second, it examines how other forms of atrocities and racism have been represented in order to provide a comparative framework.

354-373
Routledge
Kushner, Tony
958c42e3-4290-4cc4-9d7e-85c1cdff143b
Watson, Sheila
Barnes, Amy Jane
Bunning, Katy
Kushner, Tony
958c42e3-4290-4cc4-9d7e-85c1cdff143b
Watson, Sheila
Barnes, Amy Jane
Bunning, Katy

Kushner, Tony (2018) The holocaust and the museum world in Britain: a study of ethnography. In, Watson, Sheila, Barnes, Amy Jane and Bunning, Katy (eds.) A Museum Studies Approach to Heritage. 1st ed. Routledge, pp. 354-373.

Record type: Book Section

Abstract

The Imperial War Museum’s (IWM) permanent Holocaust exhibition opened in June 2000 to general acclaim in the media. Subsequently the exhibition, like the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, has proved immensely successful in generating visitors (over a quarter of a million in its first twelve months) and it appears to have elicited positive instant responses from them. In contrast to its American counterpart, however, there has been little questioning of the scope of the IWM exhibition or at a more basic level, whether it was appropriate in the first place. This contribution is an attempt to open up dialogue about the nature of the IWM Holocaust exhibition including the validity or otherwise of some of its items of display. It desires to situate the exhibition in wider debates than those focusing more narrowly on Holocaust commemoration. First, it places the exhibition in the context of collective memory and identity in Britain, especially in relation to the outside world and more specifically, Germanness and Jewishness. Second, it examines how other forms of atrocities and racism have been represented in order to provide a comparative framework.

This record has no associated files available for download.

More information

Published date: 2 October 2018

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 427298
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/427298
PURE UUID: ef69e634-7d94-4a05-828c-44b4f93dd1d6

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 11 Jan 2019 17:30
Last modified: 05 Jun 2024 17:35

Export record

Contributors

Author: Tony Kushner
Editor: Sheila Watson
Editor: Amy Jane Barnes
Editor: Katy Bunning

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×