The centre is also where researchers can tap into the 55,000 testimonies recorded by the USC Shoah Foundation. Most poignantly, it holds interviews recorded with local sur- vivors, first in the 1980s and then updated, as they aged and were able to reflect more deeply on their experiences. “It’s so important,” said Jarniewski, “be- cause almost of them are now gone.” Vancouver Vancouver’s museum’s redevelopment is part of the massive JWest project that will see new facilities for a Jewish community centre, a school, and housing. Plans are still in the early stages and architects and exhibition designers have yet to be selected, but the centre will more than double in space, from its current 4,000 square feet to about 9,000 square feet, said Nina Krieger, executive director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. She anticipates the new centre will open in about three years. A budget for the project has yet to be announced. Currently, the centre only has space for visiting temporary exhibits. The new building will have room for a permanent exhibit that introduces the history of the Holocaust and integrates the stories of local survivors. Space will also be available for temporary exhibits that explore new themes. Robert Krell, a child survivor from Holland who has been deeply involved in Holocaust education in Vancouver, was interviewed and filmed for the Dimensions in Testimony project. As the last of the country’s centres to redesign its space, Vancouver’s is learning from the other three museums, Krieger said. Each centre draws on local stories but they share similar challenges in the post-survivor era. “In the span of 11 days, the Vancouver community lost three Holocaust survivor speakers,” Krieger went on. “It just really underscores the urgency of documentation and collections initiatives involving eyewit- nesses and the importance of our work, which we know sadly is more relevant than ever due to the mounting antisemitism and racism and xenophobia, that we witness globally and across Canada and in all the regions that the centres operate in.” n
has been replaced with a projection of the names of the 1,050 Holocaust survivors who settled in Winnipeg. “We wanted to pay tribute to the sur- vivors and a picture of Auschwitz doesn’t define them,” Jarniewski explained. “Cer- tainly, some of them were in Auschwitz, but it doesn’t define the broader experience of survivors. Moreover, we wanted to pay tribute to these courageous people who started new lives, who came here, after having lost so much.” The refurbished centre puts a new empha- sis on the richness of prewar life. Displayed in a large case are a family tree that dates back to 1760, a Talmud printed in the 1800s, and an accordion that was passed down by a French family of entertainers. All the centre’s artifacts were donated by Mani- toba residents. Like all the museums, the Winnipeg centre emphasizes technology, including an interactive table that has stories, maps, photos and short videos about 24 surviv- ors, developed by Yad Vashem in Israel and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The advan- tage of the device, which is also used by the Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg, is that it can be updated to reflect the latest knowledge about the Holocaust, Jarniewski said.
Architectural design of the new Montreal Holocaust Museum
Freeman Family Holocaust Education Centre
Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre
LILA SARICK
THECJN.CA 21
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