Framing Holocaust Narratives in Britain: The Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum

• In Event: Designing Holocaust Museums: Objects, Form and Ideology

Abstract

This paper will analyze the Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in London and argue that its curatorial strategy and architecture establish and reflect a distinctive landscape of Holocaust memorialization in Britain. It is a cultural heritage that is derived through Britain’s role as a World War II liberator, its sizable contemporary Jewish population, and the need to find a new identity after the period of decolonization. The Holocaust Exhibition was opened in 2000 as part of the Millennium Commission, which supported initiatives that underscored the UK’s past achievements and established a direction for the nation’s future. This context demonstrates the government’s desire for people to have access to Holocaust history in a method proven successful in the United States and Germany. However, the Holocaust Exhibition in Britain is inside the same building which houses the national World War I and World War II exhibitions. This arrangement sets Britain apart from other countries, where Holocaust museums are in their own discrete buildings, many of which painstakingly attempt to convey the trauma of the Holocaust through architecture. By contrast, Britain’s Holocaust museum is juxtaposed with the triumph of World War II in a building whose neo-classical architectural style was used to enforce Britain’s imperial power throughout the world. This paper argues that by incorporating the Holocaust narrative into the IWM, Britain deliberately frames the Holocaust within histories of its military victories. It also casts contemporary British identity in the role of a defender against injustices, which creates an opening to frame its contemporary culture in opposition to its imperial past.

Author

• Rebecca Pollack, CUNY Graduate Center