‘A modern chamber of horrors’? Temporary Holocaust exhibitions as sites of memory: the 1961 Warsaw Ghetto commemoration exhibition, Melbourne

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the 1961 Warsaw Ghetto exhibition in Melbourne, Australia. Within the context of Eichmann’s trial in Israel and fears of rising anti-Semitism in Australia, the exhibition is a site through which debates over Jewish identity, Holocaust memory, and the hitherto marginalised role of temporary exhibitions can be understood. Using archival traces, the paper examines the intentions of the exhibition’s organisers, and its reception by visitors. It shows how representations of the Holocaust were shaped by local concerns, the availability of information from emerging global networks of memorial institutions, and the evolving category of ‘survivor’. It adds to a nuanced reading of Holocaust memorial forms, unsettling established narratives of Holocaust memory in Australia.

KEYWORDS:

• Temporary Holocaust exhibitions
• Warsaw Ghetto uprising
• Australia

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Australian Jewish Historical Society for permission to access the archives of the VJBD and to reproduce the sketch of the Marcuse and Preisser painting. I would also like thank Donna-Lee Frieze and two anonymous referees for constructive comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Steven Cooke is a cultural and historical geographer with interests in heritage, memory and identity, particularly the history, interpretation and management of Holocaust exhibitions and sites. Between 2002 and 2011, he worked in the heritage sector at some of Australia Victoria’s most significant places, including Melbourne Maritime Museum and the Shrine of Remembrance. He is a senior lecturer in Cultural Heritage and course director for the cultural heritage and museum studies programme at Deakin University. He is the editor of Historic Environment, the journal of Australia ICOMOS, and the author of two recent books and on the memorial landscapes of war and genocide. In 2015, he was appointed as a representative to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance by the Australian Government.

ORCID

Steven Cooke http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8679-5195

Notes

1 Berman, Holocaust Remembrance.

2 Ibid., 48. For further discussion about the place of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Holocaust memory see Segev, Remembering and Rebuilding, Gil, The Shoah in Israeli Collective Memory, and Wistrich, Israel, the Diaspora and the Holocaust Trauma.

3 Lawson and Jordan, The Memory of the Holocaust in Australia.

4 Cohen, The Myth of Silence.

5 Marrus, The Holocaust in History; Friedlander, Trauma, Transference and ‘Working Through’, 43.

6 Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination, 247.

7 Ritter, Distant Reverberations, 65.

8 Berman Holocaust Remembrance, 8.

9 Cooke and Frieze, The Interior of Our Memories.

10 Cohen The Myth of Silence; Jockusch, Collect and Record!

11 Cooke, Negotiating Memory and Identity.

12 A notable exception is the 1961 Warsaw Ghetto Exhibition in London, which was designed by George Him, whose archive is held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, UK.

13 See inter alia Alba, Integrity and Relevance; Alba, The Holocaust Memorial Museum; Berman, Australian Representations of the Holocaust; Berman, Holocaust Remembrance; Chatterley, Canada’s Struggle; Cooke and Frieze, The Interior of Our Memories; Holtschneider, The Holocaust and Representations of Jews; Shosh Rotem, Constructing Memory; Witcomb, Remembering the Dead; Witcomb Look, Listen and Feel; Young, The Texture of Memory.

14 Bennett The Birth of the Museum, 832.

15 This case study is part of a broader research project which is examining several temporary Holocaust exhibitions that were held in the early 1960s in Australia, the UK and the USA.

16 In Australia see Berman, Holocaust Remembrance, Lawson and Jordan, The Memory of the Holocaust in Australia, Alba, The Holocaust Memorial Museum. For the UK see inter alia Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination, Cooke, The Hidden Landscapes of the Holocaust, Pearce, Holocaust Consciousness in Contemporary Britain. For the US see inter ala Mintz, Popular Culture and the Shaping of Holocaust Memory in America, Novick, The Holocaust in American Life.

17 Berman, Holocaust Remembrance.

18 Crang and Travlou, The City and Topologies of Memory, 165.

19 Young, The Texture of Memory; Kansteiner, Finding Meaning in Memory.

20 Kansteiner, Finding Meaning in Memory, 179.

21 Rajzner and Lew, The Stories Our Parents Found Too Painful to Tell.

22 Formed as the Victorian Jewish Advisory Board in 1938, the Victorian Jewish Board of Deputies was the name of the representative body of the Victorian Jewish Community during the period of the 1961 Warsaw Ghetto Exhibition. It has over 60 affiliate organisations representing cultural, religious, educational, communal service and sporting life operating in Victoria. It changed its name to the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) in 1989. See the website of the JCCV. Accessed May 3, 2017. http://www.jccv.org.au.

23 Blakeney, The Australian Jewish Community; Rutland, The Jews in Australia; Cooke and Frieze, The Interior of Our Memories.

24 Mendes The ‘Declining’ Years of the Melbourne Jewish Council; Rubenstein, From Jewish Non-distinctiveness to Group Invisibility.

25 Few Landsmanschaften still exist. For example, Wajsenberg, Landsmanschaft Postscript.

26 Eichmann was one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. Eichmann was charged by Reinhard Heydrich with facilitating and managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe during World War II. In 1960, he was captured in Argentina by Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. Following a widely publicised trial in Israel, he was found guilty of war crimes and hanged in 1962 (see Lipstadt, The Eichmann Trial.

27 VJBD Catalogue of The Warsaw Ghetto Commemoration Exhibition, 1, emphasis added.

28 See for example Schaffer to Director Yad V’shem [sic] 24 June 1960, State Library of Victoria (SLV) VJBD Collections MS 9352Y Box 45 Warsaw Ghetto Exhibition.

29 Young, Texture of Memory,

30 Mazor and Weinberg, “Centre de Documentation Juive Contem-Poraine (CDJC)”, 547. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Accessed March 26, 2018. http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX2587504110/GVRL?u=imcpl1111&sid=GVRL&xid=aa35616e.

31 See Cole, Ghettoization, 65–87 for a discussion of the place of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Holocaust historiography.

32 Liebler to Mr W. Duffield, State Zionist Council 23 June 1960, SLV VJBD Collections MS9352y Box 45 Warsaw Ghetto Exhibition.

33 Kweit, Responses of Australian Jewry’s Leadership to the Holocaust.

34 Rutland, The Jews in Australia, 79, Berman, Holocaust Remembrance.

35 Slucki, The International Jewish Labor Bund.

36 Schaffer to Clerk of Town Hall 15 March 1961, SLV VJBD Collections M04849 Box 45 Material relating to Ha-Shoah (The Holocaust).

37 Schaffer [Letters] to editors of Australian Jewish News and Australian Jewish Herald 20 March, SLV VJBD Collections, M04849 Box 45 Material relating to Ha-Shoah (The Holocaust).

38 Lippmann to VJBD 17/3/1961, SLV VJBD Collections Box 45 M04849 Material relating to Ha-Shoah (The Holocaust).

39 Rubenstein, From Jewish Non-distinctiveness; see also Cooke Negotiating Memory and Identity for a discussion of how a similar framework contributed to forms of Holocaust memorialisation in the UK.

40 Australian Jewish News March 24, 1961, 4 and 5, and in the Yiddish section of the newspaper on page 10.

41 On the same page as the advert for the service and exhibition, Sydney Einfeld, President of the Executive Council of Australian Jews, echoes Lipmman’s warning about the Eichmann trial, suggesting that ‘might bring a revival in [Australia] of planned antisemitic outbreaks’, articulating fears that a focus on the Holocaust would prompt a rise in anti-Semitism, rather than provide a space to learn about the danger so racism, “Einfeld’s Warning on Trial Implications.” Australian Jewish News, March 24, 1961, 4.

42 VJBD Executive Meeting 27/3/1961, SLV VJBD Collections Box 5 M04819.

43 Jacobson to Epstein, President Hobart Hebrew Congregation, 19 April 1961 SLV VJBD Collections Box 45 M04849 Material relating to Ha-Shoah (The Holocaust).

44 See Lazer, V. [letter] to President of the VJBD, April 12, 1961, SLV VJBD Collections, M04849 Box 45 Material relating to Ha-Shoah (The Holocaust).

45 “Mindful of the Jewish Contributions.” Australian Jewish News, April 14, 1961, 5.

46 Kansteiner, Finding Meaning in Memory.

47 Rumours that soap was being made from the bodies of murdered Jews circulated during and immediately after the war, but were called into question by historians such as Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews.

48 VJBD ‘Catalogue of The Warsaw Ghetto Commemoration Exhibition’ (18th Anniversary) Monday April 10th 1961 to Friday April 14th 1961’, 3. SLV VJBD Collections M04849 Box 45.

49 Ibid., 3–4.

50 VJBD Catalogue of The Warsaw Ghetto Commemoration Exhibition, 1.

51 Berman, Holocaust Remembrance.

52 These are now in the collection of the Jewish Holocaust Centre, Melbourne.

53 “Ghetto Scene in Warsaw after the Nazis.” Herald, April 7, 1961. For further information about the Stroop Report, including the photographs, see The Stroop Collection at Yad Vashem. Accessed March 26, 2018. http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/warsaw_ghetto/collection.asp.

54 Which verse from Lamentations in unknown. However, the Memorial De La Shoah in Paris also includes a verse from Lamentations 2: 22 shown behind the memorial which reads: ‘Young and old lie together in the dust of the streets; my young men and young women have fallen by the sword. You have slain them in the day of your anger; you have slaughtered them without pity,’ so it would suggest that this is the verse included in the Melbourne exhibition.

55 Schaffer to Mr Haim Raphael, consul in charge of the Consulate General of Israel, SLV VJBD Collections Box 45 MS 9352Y Warsaw Ghetto Exhibition.

56 See Schaffer to Aronsfeld Wiener Library London, 17 March 1961; 12 April 1961; Schaffer to Ansbacher Yad Vashem, 17 April 1961, SLV VJBD Collections Box 45 M04849 Material relating to Ha-Shoah (The Holocaust).

57 Ibid., 5. Continuing the theme of the ‘fighting Jew’ exemplified by the Warsaw Ghetto, this section also included material on the Victorian Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women, accompanied by the Book of Remembrance and Honour Roll of Jews who has served and those who had died serving Australia in war, and a photograph of Rabbi J. Danglow, Jewish chaplain to the Australian Imperial Force in World War I. The objects also referenced the longevity of Jewish life in Melbourne, with a display of historical relics from the East Melbourne Synagogue, the ‘Oldest synagogue in Melbourne.’

58 VJBD Catalogue of The Warsaw Ghetto Commemoration Exhibition, 5.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid., 1.

61 “Thousands Come Daily.” Australian Jewish Herald, April 14, 1961; Minutes of the VJBD’s Annual General Meeting in 1961 also contained discussion as to the need for support for ‘hard core of needy case who were mainly victims of Nazi persecution.’ SLV VJBD Collections Box 4. M4818 MS9352 VJBD Minutes 1953-62; Minutes of the AGM, 4/12/60.

62 Rutland The Jews in Australia.

63 Ritter Distant Reverberations.

64 VJBD Catalogue of The Warsaw Ghetto Commemoration Exhibition, 7.

65 That is not to say, however, that the VJBD was unsympathetic to the plight of Indigenous Australians at the time, and a resolution was brought before the VJBD Executive the following year (2 November 1962), under ‘Aboriginal Advancement’: ‘To place on record the support of the Jewish Community for the principles of equality of treatment and opportunity for all minority groups’). A focus on ‘what was lost’ would only emerge in the 1980s in many permanent Holocaust exhibitions, while the discussion of Australian genocide and broader discussion of human rights and representation in Australian Holocaust museums is a matter of contemporary discussion. See Alba, Set in Stone?

66 Cooke and Frieze 2015 The Interior of Our Memories. The discourse of redemption was reinforced by the Warsaw Ghetto commemoration which the exhibition coincided, during which many speakers, according to reports in the Australian Jewish Herald suggested that:

The way for those Jews who have either not suffered at the hands of the Nazis or had survived the holocaust [sic] to honour and cherish the memory of their perished brethren was to carry on Jewish life and heritage with the greatest possible endeavour. Through this effort, Jewry would see that the ghetto heroes had not died in vain.

“To strengthen Jewish life is best memorial.” Australian Jewish Herald, April 21, 1961, 2.

67 Kansteiner, Finding Meaning in Memory.

68 “Opening by the Lord Mayor.” Australian Jewish News, April 14, 1961, 1; “First Session of the Trial.” Australian Jewish News, April 14, 1961, 1.

69 “Exhibition Tells of Brutality.” The Age, April 11, 1961, 3.

70 Indeed, this would have been unusual during this period. As Hoper-Greenhill suggests, although visitor studies did start in the 1960s, they were generally small scale, concerned with demographics rather than attitudes and experiences, and were mainly undertaken at professionally run museum, Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and Communication.

71 Greer Far Cashman “Tributes Paid to Warsaw Fighters.” Australian Jewish News, April 21, 1961, 13. There is a lack of data on the gender of Holocaust survivors who came to Australia. Although survival rates varied in time and place, women generally had lower survival rates, but wrote the majority of testimonies post-war. See von Joeden-Forgey, Gender and Genocide, on this issue and the marginalisation of gender in genocide studies more generally. A review of the Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive reveals that more women who reference Australia provided their testimony to the project than men, Shoah Visual History Archive. Accessed May 9, 2017. http://vhaonline.usc.edu/. On the marginalisation of Jewish women’s experiences as refugees in the UK see Davis, Belonging and Unbelonging. On differences in survival rates see Wachsmann, KL.

72 Cooke, Negotiating Memory and Identity.

73 “Jews Remember Ghetto Horror.” The Sun, April 11, 1961, 15.

74 “Mindful of the Jewish Contributions.” Australian Jewish News, April 14, 1961, 5; “Jews Remember Ghetto Horror.” The Sun, April 11, 1961, 15.

75 Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination.

76 Daniel David, “Exhibition Is a Must.” Australian Jewish News, April 7, 1961, 6.

77 Pamela Ruskin “Roundabout.” Australian Jewish News, April 7, 1961, 7

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid.

80 Letters to the Editor. “Reply to Mrs Ruskin.” Australian Jewish News, May 5, 1961, 6. See also Ruskin’s response in “Roundabout.” Australian Jewish News, May 12, 1961, 7.

81 Martin Reichwald, “Letters to the Editor ‘Warsaw Ghetto Exhibitio’.” Australian Jewish News, April 21, 1961, 20.

82 Kansteiner Finding Meaning in Memory, 197.

83 Dance Australia 1996. “Alfred Ruskin Eulogy.” reproduced online. Accessed March 26, 2018. http://www.apersonalhistory.com/AlfredRuskin/

84 The dichotomies are still unresolved. See for example ongoing debates over visitor behaviour at Holcoast sites and memorials, such as the ‘Dancing Auschwitz’ and ‘Yolocaust.’

85 Young, Texture of Memory, Cooke, The Hidden Landscapes of the Holocaust.

86 Berman, Holocaust Remembrance.

87 Friedman to Schaffer June 20, 1961, SLV VJBD Collections Box 45 M04849 Material relating to Ha-Shoah (The Holocaust).

88 Schaffer to Max Friedman (State Zionist Council NSW) June 26, 1961 SLV VJBD Collections Box 45 M04849 Material relating to Ha-Shoah (The Holocaust). It is unclear as to whether the exhibition was held in Sydney. The history of the NSW Board of Deputies is silent on the matter, see Rutland and Caplan With One Voice.

89 “6,000 Saw the Ghetto Exhibition.” Australian Jewish News, April 28, 1961, 8. Despite extensive searches, no information about what form the exhibition took at the University of Melbourne has been found.

90 Cesarani, Introduction; Jockusch, Collect and Record.

91 Simon, The Terrible Gift.

92 Photograph of the Memorial de la Shoah, February 5, 2017, by Guihem Vellut, reproduced under Creative Commons License. Accessed May 9, 2017. https://tinyurl.com/ybeyqfs4