Overview
- Examines the construction of Holocaust memory within national museums in Britain
- Positions contemporary debates on Holocaust museums in Britain within a wider historical context
- Considers the process of memory-making through a case study of the Imperial War Museum Holocaust exhibition
Part of the book series: The Holocaust and its Contexts (HOLC)
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book explores the Holocaust exhibition opened within the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in 2000; setting out the long and often contentious debates surrounding the conception, design, and finally the opening of an important exhibition within a national museum in Britain. It considers a process of memory-making through an assessment of Holocaust photographs, material culture, and survivor testimonies; exploring theories of cultural memory as they apply to the national museum context. Anchored in time and place, the Holocaust exhibition within Britain’s national museum of war is influenced by, and reflects, an international rise in Holocaust consciousness in the 1990s. This book considers the construction of Holocaust memory in 1990s Britain, providing a foundation for understanding current and future national memory projects. Through all aspects of the display, the Holocaust is presented as meaningful in terms of what it says about Nazism and what this, in turn, says about Britishness. From the original debates surrounding the inclusion of a Holocaust gallery at the IWM, to the acquisition of Holocaust artefacts that could act as 'concrete evidence' of Nazi barbarity and criminality, the Holocaust reaffirms an image of Britain that avoids critical self-reflection despite raising uncomfortably close questions. The various display elements are brought together to consider multiple strands of the Holocaust story as it is told by national museums in Britain.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Emily-Jayne Stiles is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Winchester, UK, specialising in history and memory of the Holocaust. She also contributed towards the concept for the United Kingdom Holocaust Memorial Learning Centre, proposing the ‘British story’ for the permanent exhibition space.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Holocaust Memory and National Museums in Britain
Authors: Emily-Jayne Stiles
Series Title: The Holocaust and its Contexts
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89355-2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-89354-5Published: 17 November 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-89357-6Published: 18 November 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-89355-2Published: 16 November 2021
Series ISSN: 2731-5711
Series E-ISSN: 2731-572X
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 220
Topics: History of Britain and Ireland, History of World War II and the Holocaust, Cultural History