Date of Award

6-13-2025

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

History

First Advisor

Patricia Mooney-Melvin

Abstract

Holocaust Museums present a history of the genocide of European Jews, while Jewish Museums represent the long history and diverse cultures of Jewish life. By examining Holocaust public histories in Poland and the United States, this dissertation outlines the historical and memorial conditions that inform museum exhibits, as well as the curatorial approaches that synthesize historical information, spatial contexts, and material culture into exhibition narratives and historical representation. This dissertation employs exhibition analysis to explain existing curatorial approaches in Holocaust public histories and identifies curatorial principles and methods of display that might translate to new exhibits. Informed by the models of Holocaust representation in Jewish Museums, I argue that the curatorial framework of Jewish heritage best illustrates the complexity of Holocaust experiences and transforms the interpretive relationship between identity and loss. In Oświęcim, Poland, the Auschwitz Jewish Center presents the four hundred years of local Jewish life in the town, the direct impact of Auschwitz-Birkenau on the local Jewish community, and the recovery of Jewish spaces in the era of renewal. The museum and its curated spaces reflect living memory and a changing presence of Jewish heritage in Oświęcim. The Auschwitz Jewish Center is further contextualized by an examination of Holocaust memory in Poland and exhibition analysis of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and POLIN: Museum of the History of Polish Jews. In New York City, the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust represents the Holocaust through the lens of Jewish history, memory, culture, and identity. The museum adds to the cultural landscape of Jewish heritage in the city and inspires a living memory of the Holocaust. The Museum of Jewish Heritage is contextualized by Holocaust memory in the United States and the complexity of the Jewish American diaspora, as well as exhibition analysis of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center. Regardless of location, I argue that Jewish Museums produce different exhibits based on their situational contexts and because of different curatorial approaches, yet these museums share a common perspective of living memory and exhibit Jewish life and loss by interpreting the complexity of Jewish heritage.

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