INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
ON THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY
OF THE MUSEUM
AND MEMORIAL IN BEŁŻEC
Nearly 15 speakers were invited to participate in the on-line conference "Museum exhibitions in the Holocaust memorials: from Bełżec to Sobibór" organized on June 4–5, 2024. It is dedicated to a broader context of influence and perception of exhibitions in the museums established on the former camp grounds. Register and take part in our event. It will be held in English, under honorary patronage of the National Institute of Museums.
Museum and Memorial in Bełżec
Museum narratives in the former concentration camps and extermination centres pursue two essential goals: commemorating the victims and documenting the history of the camps. Across the source literature it is often emphasised that the power of such sites lies in their aura and the tangibility of the preserved historical traces. Less frequently, however, is the attention paid to the features of the museum exhibitions: the manner of constructing their narrative or the educational potential that lies in their core.
Yet another matter concerns the “recognisability” of the memorial museums as genuine and symbolical forms of representing the past. Many questions arise in this context: How are they perceived by their visitors, the general public, media, or the museum community both in Poland and internationally? What role, therefore, do the memorials have in promoting education about the Holocaust history as well as in shaping the regional and global culture of memory? What is their actual importance for organisations that deal with researching, documenting, and commemorating
the annihilation of Jews, including the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)?
The primary aim of the jubilee conference organized at the Museum and Memorial in Bełzec is to inspire reflection on the perception of museums established in the Holocaust-related sites in terms of their exhibitions. The debates will focus on the issues of the exhibition creation aspects (narrative form and content; interinfluence of the exhibitions, post-camp landscapes, and
monuments). Additionally, we will concentrate on the reception of their implementation in the social domain (public history, remembrance, education). We wish to analyse these topics through the scope of the last two decades, over the course of which museum and their expositions underwent significant transformations. The impulse for this has been sparked by the 20th inauguration anniversary of the Museum and Memorial in Bełzec and its de facto the first narrative exhibition in Poland, as well as by the recent opening of the new Museum and Memorial in Sobibór nearly twenty years later where an exhibition of
a documentary character is presented.
Both these memorials and simultaneously branches of the State Museum at Majdanek shall serve as case study samples. The conference, however, is dedicated to a broader context of influence and perception of exhibitions in the museums established on the former camp grounds. That is why we extend our invitation to reflect on the exhibitions documenting the persecution and extermination of Jews during World War II not only to museum experts, but also to the representatives of various institutions and societies that are engaged in commemorating the victims and promoting the knowledge about the Holocaust – both in Poland and abroad.