Museums as Sites of HistoryExploring the Sydney Jewish Museum
By Avril Alba, Education Manager, Sydney Jewish Museum
(The following article was published in Teaching History: Journal of the
History Teacher's Association of NSW, Vol 38, No 4)
The Sydney Jewish Museum (SJM) provides a unique insight into one of the
most horrific events of the 20th century, the Nazi genocide of European Jewry
commonly referred to as the Holocaust. While the SJM contributes greatly to
the teaching of this period of history it also commemorates and educates
about the Holocaust in an effort to counter the kind of racism and persecution
that contributed to the success of the Nazi genocide. In so doing it supports
one of the key underlying goals of the NSW curriculum—to create informed
and tolerant citizens who both embrace and contribute to the growing cultural
and religious diversity evident in contemporary Australian life.
What is a Museum?
Museums have come a long way from the ‘cabinets of curiosities’ of the
Renaissance and 17th century. Douglas Allan, late director of the Royal
Scottish Museum in Edinburgh said that, “a museum in its simplest form
consists of a building to house collections of objects for inspection, study and
enjoyment.” Thomas Hoving, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, declares that the museum possesses, “a great potential, not only as a
stabilising, regenerative force in modern society, but as a crusading force for
quality and excellence.” Most notably Germain Bazin, chief curator of the
Louvre, (speaking particularly of American Museums) said: “Perhaps the most
significant contribution America has made to the concept of the Museum is in
the field of education. It is common practice for a museum to offer lectures
and concerts, show films, circulate exhibitions, publish important works of art.
The museum has metamorphosed into a university for the general public” 1
As these quotes illustrate, museums today are not simply institutions of
collection and display—although these are in and of themselves important
and vital functions for documenting our shared history and mapping our
cultural landscape. Museums are also powerful educational institutions,
capable of fostering a sense of history and memory that extends well beyond
the classroom. Interaction with various forms of exhibitions and displays—
whether that be through primary artefacts, multimedia, archive documents
and, as is the case with the Sydney Jewish Museum, oral history of Holocaust
Survivors—are modes of learning that cannot be readily accessed in the
classroom alone.
Taking the Sydney Jewish Museum as a case study, and focusing particularly
on the new Stage 4 – 5 NSW history syllabus, this article explores how
museum education has the potential to deeply affect a student’s learning
Edward P. Alexander, “What is a Museum”, Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and
Function of Museums, American Association for State and Local History, Nashville, 1979 pp. 5- 15
1
particularly with regard to history, historiography and more broadly in the
areas of anti racism and civics and citizenship education (imbedded in the
history and geography Stage 4 – 5 syllabi).2
The Standard SJM Visit
In a standard SJM visit students first watch a ten-minute introductory video.
The video presents a short history of the Jewish people, Jewish settlement in
Australia and then focuses on the Holocaust of European Jewry in Nazi
Germany. It also includes messages of universal tolerance and advocates for
vigilance against the possibility of future genocides. Students then have the
opportunity to hear a Holocaust Survivor give personal testimony of his
experiences throughout the Second World War. Finally, students explore the
Museum, aided by worksheets specifically linked to the syllabus outcomes of
their given subject area. This combination of diverse yet related educational
techniques provides students with a unique opportunity to hear eyewitness
testimony and juxtapose a personal story within the broader historical context
provided by the exhibition and artefacts.
What does this method of learning achieve? Firstly, it makes the experience
as ‘real’ as possible for the student. The mixture of oral history and artefacts,
photos and documentation, brings the historical period to life in a way that is
not possible through the written word alone. No written account of the
Holocaust—whether it be in the realm of history, biography or a fictionalised
account—can be as effective as the experience of hearing eyewitness
testimony, or seeing actual objects and photo archives. The student is
engaging with the material aurally, visually, intellectually and emotionally. The
learning experience is deeply personalized through the Survivor’s account
and the immediacy that the exhibition provides.
Secondly, the Survivor stands as a living example of ongoing aspects of
Australian history—most particularly migration and multiculturalism. The
Survivor guide not only tells the story of his or her experience in the Holocaust
but often this is interspersed with stories of the remarkable individuals who
saved them (if they were saved by an individual or individuals). Further, the
Survivors convey the stories of rescue and renewal that led them to Australia.
The greatest benefit that most Survivors speak of when recounting migration
stories was that they could, having reached Australia, live without fear.
However, adjustment to a new life did not come easily as learning a new
language and its nuances, new foods and customs and struggling to establish
financial independence were all challenges that needed to be faced.3
Survivors’ personal accounts include recollections of the attitudes of the host
2
The general and specialised SJM programs also relate and can be catered to the current history
syllabus (to be phased out by 2006). There is particular resonance for Stage 5: Elective: Topic Two:
Genocide and Racism, and Stage 5: Mandatory: Topics Five and Six: Post War Australia to the 1970’s:
Citizenship and Migrant Australians Social and Political Issues from the 1970’s to the 1990’s:
Multiculturalism
3
Suzanne Rutland, (1997), The Edge of the Diaspora: Two Centuries of Jewish Settlement in Australia,
Sydney, 2nd edition p. 257
population, ‘official’ responses and responses from the organised Jewish
community.
Taken together, the experiences of testimony and display, coupled with
students’ knowledge of secondary sources, provide a continuum of historical
learning that spans the latter half of the twentieth century and continues to
hold relevance in the current Australian social and political landscape. It is
precisely in this manner that the museum as a historical site makes available
an unparalleled spectrum of historical knowledge and understanding in an
intensive and unique learning environment.
Investigating History
There is an increasing emphasis within the NSW history syllabus on
historiography.
For example within the Stages 4 – 5 history syllabus are the complementary
subjects: Stage 4 Mandatory Topic ‘Investigating History’, ‘Site Studies’ and
Stage 4 – 5 Elective Topic ‘Constructing History’. All of these topic areas deal
with the related issues of how historians undertake their work and the various
forces at play in the construction of a historical narrative. Further, these topic
areas aim to show the student how history is utilized in the present and the
force that it exerts on current social and political realities.
The museum as a historical site is perfectly suited to guide the student
through this process and help them to understand the profound connection
between the exploration of the past and the construction of the present. A
museum unites these themes within the process of exhibition development
and display, and, as is the case at the SJM, it can also utilize other historical
tools such as oral history and archaeological evidence. Museums collect and
house our history but they also choose how we display that history. Museums
are therefore both ‘investigators and ‘constructors’ of history in a profound and
complex sense.
The SJM addresses these issues and syllabus topic areas most explicitly
through the section of its Holocaust exhibition entitled, ‘The Invasion of the
Soviet Union’—in particular the section of the display that focuses on mass
shootings that occurred in the Ukrainian village of Serniki. Serniki is a village
in the Northern Ukraine whose Jewish inhabitants were murdered by the
Nazis and their collaborators during World War II. This village became an
important archaeological site when the Australian government in the 1990’s
carried out investigations into War Crimes. The SJM was fortunate to be the
main repository for the artefacts and documentation used throughout the
Australian War Crimes trials—particularly with regard to the trials of those
involved in the mass murders in the forest of Serniki. With the support of a
NSW Ministry for the Arts grant the SJM is undertaking to expand and
upgrade this display to make explicit the historical, archaeological and legal
processes that were fundamental in compiling the evidence needed in order
to undertake War Crimes trials in Australia.
The display has the following objectives:
a) To reveal the history and extent of the mass killings at Serniki
b) To examine the archaeological methods used to collect evidence
c) To provide a consideration of the Australian War Crimes Tribunal and
the Special Investigations Unit
d) To provide a context for the study of other genocides
e) To create a model for historical investigation using a combination of
personal testimony and archaeological evidence4
These objectives allow for a multifaceted display that aims to document and
display both the process and the content of an integral and intriguing aspect
of European and Australian history. All of these aspects can be further
explored through specialised school’s education programs tailored to the
specific syllabus area—whether that be in Ancient History, in the Modern
History topics of ‘Investigating History’, ‘Constructing History’ or an
examination of the SJM as a site study. While all these topics can benefit from
a general tour of the SJM as well, the Serniki display in particular will allow
students to address the complex historiographical questions.
For example, how does the historian gather her evidence? What sources are
credible and why? What is the role of oral testimony, eyewitness accounts,
objects and archaeology, primary documentation etc? How has this particular
investigation of the past (a past, moreover, that happened on a different
continent) influenced the political and cultural landscape of the Australian
present? How have the Australian War Crimes trials been perceived both
domestically and abroad and what did they contribute to our present
understandings of justice and equity? In an ‘Investigating History’ visit to the
SJM the students will be able to explore all aspects of this fascinating process
through hands on experience. They will hear from a Survivor (oral testimony),
they will see the artefacts (objects and archaeology) and they will view
documentation through photographic and text display. This approach to
historical inquiry is multifaceted and complex—allowing the student to
understand the process of historiography and its continued contemporary
relevance in a visceral and hands on encounter.
Celebrating Democracy Program
‘Celebrating Democracy’ is a specialised program of the SJM that allows
students to consider the construction and maintenance of democratic
societies in an integrated manner. There is emphasis in the syllabus on
developing students as citizens who, “have the capacity to exercise
judgement and responsibility in matters of morality, ethics and social justice,
and the capacity to make sense of their world, to think about how things got to
be the way they are, to make rational and informed decisions about their own
lives, and to accept responsibility for their own action.”5 Studying the
destruction of democracy in Nazi Germany allows teachers to focus on
concepts such as rights, freedoms and responsibilities.
4
5
Unearthing the Holocaust, SJM curatorial dept and Susi Brieger, educational consultant
Ref: National Goals for Schooling in the 21st Century
The ‘Celebrating Democracy’ program has particular relevance to the new
Stage 5 Mandatory History syllabus Topics 6, and 8, Changing Rights and
Freedoms, and Australia’s Social and Cultural History in the Post-War period
respectively. At first glance these topics may not seem to lend themselves
automatically to either a study of the Holocaust or to a museum visit.
However, two central issues imbedded in the syllabus—the meaning of
democratic citizenship and the value of diversity—can be effectively examined
by focussing on the loss of democracy suffered by Jews and other persecuted
groups in Nazi Germany and the regaining of these rights through immigration
to Australia. Students’ study can be further enhanced through a case study of
the Jewish community as one of the communities that make up the
multicultural landscape of Australia post WWII.
The ‘Celebrating Democracy’ program at the SJM comprises an examination
of how the Nazi party came to power through democratic means, and then
proceeded to destroy that democracy followed by discussion with Holocaust
Survivor guides—for whom the erosion of German democracy was the
beginning of a systematic persecution that changed their lives irrevocably.
Together, these experiences challenge students to examine the fragile nature
of the democratic system. They can engage in discussion of our own
democratic system, and the freedoms and responsibilities that democratic
citizenship entails. The Survivor is then able to talk further about their
migration experience and the differences between the immigrant experience
post war and current experience in an ‘officially multicultural’ Australia.
Students are challenged to rethink their understandings of the fragility of the
democratic system through a consideration of selected artefacts that
graphically illustrate the process by which a democracy was destroyed.
Passports show identification by race and religion, yellow stars single out
Jews from other citizens, home and property is lost as official Nazi lists
graphically illustrate the process of deportation and finally, extermination.
Coupled with a workshop facilitated by SJM educators, students are able to
see how easily democracy can be lost and are challenged to think about
whose responsibility it is to maintain democratic rights. All aspects of the
program relate to values that run throughout the History mandatory syllabus
such as commitment to informed and active citizenship—commitment to a just
society, an appreciation of the study of history, empathetic understanding and
commitment to lifelong learning.6
Conclusion
Through this brief consideration of standard and selected specialised
programs available to students and teachers at the SJM, the profound role
that museums can play in the conservation and teaching of history is readily
apparent, Museums not only teach students about history and how history is
constructed, but they also help students develop the capacity to think about
the issues that emerge from history in a clear and coherent manner. They do
6
Stage 4 –5, History syllabus, “Rationale”, pg. 8
so through the use of an effective interplay of diverse yet interrelated
elements—engaging student learning through a mixture of visual, aural, and
intellectual methods. In making the connection between past and present,
museums provide students the with tools to question and investigate not only
the attitudes and actions of a ‘world that was’ but also ‘this world’—helping
them to understand the meaning and purpose of historical investigation as a
personal, communal and national imperative.
For further information on Sydney Jewish Museum go to
http://www.sydneyjewishmuseum.com.au/education/default.asp