In this edition of Voices, we focus on survivors and their artefacts. The issue begins with an insight into the curatorial process behind developing our two new permanent exhibition spaces with survivors’ stories as the focal point. We highlight some of the important artefacts that will be on display within our exhibitions, and share some amazing stories from our survivors and their descendants.

In this issue we are excited to unveil the rationale that underpins our new brand identity, and take readers on a journey through our redevelopment project, with Principal Architect Kerstin Thompson.

In this issue we are excited to unveil the rationale that underpins our new brand identity, and take readers on a journey through our redevelopment project, with Principal Architect Kerstin Thompson. Join us as we explore our new permanent Holocaust exhibition, Everybody Had a Name and spotlight an inspiring speech made by Nina Bassat entitled ‘The Triumph of Memory,’ an overarching theme for this issue.

At this exciting time in our history, this edition of Centre News reflects on the past, looking back to the very first issue published in 1984.

At this exciting time in our history, this edition of Centre News reflects on the past, looking back to the very first issue published in 1984. We celebrate the important contributions of the past editors. This issue looks deeper into the research of the Gandel Holocaust Survey and explores what some of the findings mean. Our feature article is an edited version of Professor Phillipe Sands keynote speech at the Betty and Shmuel Rosenkranz Oration. We are excited to update you on news of the redevelopment of our museum, as the main building phase nears completion. Please enjoy this edition of Centre News.

Melbourne Holocaust survivors are truly the stars of this Spring edition of the Centre News.

We celebrate the contributions of Phillip Maisel in our testimonies collection, feature artist Mirka Mora, explore the stories of Eva Szego, Halina Strnad and Ruth Kneppel. In the 60th anniversary of the Eichmann trial, we feature an article about its impact on attitudes to the Holocaust and to survivors. We also provide an update on the progress of the new museum building and the work of our team as we continue to deliver our virtual education programs over Melbourne’s successive lockdowns.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, your September 2020 edition of Centre News focuses on the work of the Jewish Holocaust Centre in ensuring that Holocaust education continues in a virtual environment.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, your September 2020 edition of Centre News focuses on the work of the Jewish Holocaust Centre in ensuring that Holocaust education continues in a virtual environment. Associate Professor Anna Bauer and Dr Joseph Toltz write about the first published collection of Holocaust songs, and Anna Epstein discusses Yiddish poet Melekh Ravitch’s journey to outback Australia in 1933 in his quest to find a Jewish homeland. We hope you enjoy these and the other articles in this edition.

We feature articles by Professor Jeffrey Rosenfeld reflecting on his experience as an eyewitness of genocide and the rise of antisemitism today.

We feature articles by Professor Jeffrey Rosenfeld reflecting on his experience as an eyewitness of genocide and the rise of antisemitism today. Eva Slonim shares memories of being liberated by the Soviet Army at Auschwitz as well as her feelings of loss and guilt as a Holocaust survivor.

Dr Chiara Renzo discusses the experiences of Jewish Displaced Persons in post-war Italy and Dr Anna Hirsh shines a light on religious diversity and tolerance in Germany today.

The second issue of Centre News for 2019 features articles by writers and experts on the Holocaust, but the stars truly are the Holocaust survivors involved in the Melbourne Holocaust Museum.

Julia Mayer highlights the stories of Sarah Saaroni, Stephanie Heller and Annetta Able in an article about Irris Makler’s wonderful book Just Add Love: Holocaust Survivors Share their Stories and Recipes, and we bring you the late Kitia Altman’s moving story Loloush. We also feature the stories of Joe de Haan, Charles German and Jenny Chaenkel.

Shana Tova, Happy New Year and enjoy reading these and the other inspirational articles in this second edition for the year.

Your Centre News covers a rich array of subjects, from the Haredi narrative of the Holocaust to the treatment of the sick and disabled under National Socialism, and reflections on the recent Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

We feature the early testimonies of Holocaust survivors recorded in Yiddish and translated by Freda Hodge in Tragedy and Triumph: Early Testimonies of Jewish Survivors of World War II. In this edition, we also bring you Andy Factor’s story of escaping from Europe and building a new life in Australia centred on music, art and family. Enjoy reading all the thought-provoking articles in this first edition of Centre News for 2019.

The Rosh Hashanah edition of Centre News, replete with outstanding articles, records the stories of two priceless acquisitions by the Melbourne Holocaust Museum.

The Rosh Hashanah edition of Centre News, replete with outstanding articles, records the stories of two priceless acquisitions by the Melbourne Holocaust Museum. The first is the diary of the late Yitzchak Meir Kluska, written in Yiddish on ledger paper in what was effectively a chimney, while in hiding during the Holocaust. The second tells the story of a Sefer Torah from the Czechoslovakian town of Valasske Mezirici. The small Jewish population of the town was decimated during the Holocaust: most of the community’s members were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Sefer Torah, however, survived and is now displayed at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum.

Articles in this issue of Centre News include a thoughtful piece by Professor Paul Bartrop on the impact of the 1938 Evian Conference (this year is the 80th anniversary of the international meeting), and a moving account of what happened to the Polish town of Lowicz during the Shoah, written by Michaela Glass, Monash University student and recipient of the Irene and Ignace Rozental journalism scholarship. Lowicz was Michaela’s grandfather’s home town

In this edition, Mark Weitzman, from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Dr Brendan Nelson, Director of the Australian War Memorial, draw lessons from the Holocaust in discussing current events.

In addition, we also bring you the stories of survivors Josef Hellen and Moshe Fiszman, and Bernadette Gore and Paul Valent, who feature in the new anthology of Melbourne child survivors, A Point in Time. Maarten Joustra recounts the moving story of how he was saved through the help and courage of ‘ordinary people’ in Holland, and Ellina Zipman discusses the Melbourne Holocaust survivor opsimaths – people who learn later in life – who embarked on study after being denied an education because of the Holocaust.

Featured in this edition of Centre News are the moving stories of Holocaust survivors and MHM museum guides Lusia Haberfeld and Joe Scwarzberg.

Featured in this edition of Centre News are the moving stories of Holocaust survivors and MHM museum guides Lusia Haberfeld and Joe
Scwarzberg. Jayne Josem reports on the journey to Poland she undertook with Szaja Chaskiel and a film crew to make a film that will help future visitors to the MHM to ‘walk’ with a survivor through his memories.

Dr Anna Hirsh mines the extensive MHM collection to bring you stories of Jewish people in Melbourne who selflessly helped refugees and Holocaust survivors to escape Europe and settle in Melbourne; English doctoral student Amy Williams writes about the Kindertransports; and US-based Australian academic Professor Paul Bartrop urges us to remember the Pontian genocide.

This issue of Centre News showcases a new exhibition at the Australian War Memorial

This issue of Centre News showcases a new exhibition at the Australian War Memorial ‘The Holocaust: Witnesses and Survivors’, an article by Emeritus Professor Konrad Kwiet on Australian responses to the Holocaust before and during World War Two, and much more, penned by scholars and survivors.

The September 2016 edition of Centre News, featuring a moving tribute to Elie Wiesel by Rabbi Ralph Genende.

The September 2016 pre-Rosh Hashanah edition of the Melbourne Holocaust Museum’s bi-annual publication, Centre News, features a moving tribute to Elie Wiesel, who passed away on 2 July this year, by Rabbi Ralph Genende in which he refers to Wiesel as a man burning ‘with a passion and a mission … Out of this fire was born his primary mission: … to bear witness, to give testimony and create a testament for the future.’

Articles in this edition include the testimonies of those who bore witness: the stories of Lola Putt, one of the few Greek Jews to survive Auschwitz; Floris Kalman, a Belgian child survivor of the Holocaust who spent two years in hiding; Shmuel Rosenkranz, who witnessed Kristallnacht in Vienna as a teenager before escaping from Europe; and Gary Gray from Sosnowiec, Poland, and Otto Kohn from Prague, Czechoslovakia, who were prisoners in slave labour and concentration camps. As Centre News editor, Ruth Mushin, notes in her introductory message: ‘Bearing witness and giving testimony has also been the mission of Melbourne’s Holocaust survivors, and this edition is truly a celebration of their stories and the enormous contribution they have made’.

The publication includes some fascinating insights by Melbourne Holocaust Museum Curator Jayne Josem and Archivist Dr Anna Hirsh on their recent trips to Poland, an analysis of Holocaust diarists by Dr Fiona Kaufman, and a reflection on what it means to be part of the third generation of Holocaust survivors by Bram Presser.

We hope you enjoy the articles.

Words are not the only way to tell stories, however, and in this edition we also feature the MHM Memory Reconstruction Project.

Words are not the only way to tell stories, however, and in this edition we also feature the MHM Memory Reconstruction Project, which brought together Holocaust survivors and their families at the Centre to create personal collages to capture survivors’ stories. And, in another example of visual storytelling, Dr Anna Hirsh discusses some of the artworks housed in the Centre’s own wonderful collection of paintings, drawings and sculpture.The April 2016 pre-Pesach edition of the Melbourne Holocaust Museum’s bi-annual publication, Centre News, makes excellent reading. This issue features the text of a presentation by Holocaust survivor and Melbourne Holocaust Museum guide, 94-year old Moshe Fiszman, given in January at the UN Holocaust Memorial Day in which he focuses on the ‘sparks of human kindness, selflessness and compassion’ of one courageous non-Jewish woman who helped him to survive. As well as bringing you his moving testimony, we also feature the account of Saba Feniger’s liberation in May 1945, and Fred Antman’s recollections of life as a refugee in Shanghai.

Dr John Fox has written a thoughtful analysis of Theodore Adorno’s ideas about collective responsibility and their connection to the Holocaust, and Dr Avril Alba discusses the transmission of Holocaust memory to successive generations, and the role of Holocaust museums in doing so.

We hope you enjoy the articles.

Articles in our April 2015 edition of Centre News focus on Jews who survived the Second World War inside the Soviet Union.

Articles in our April 2015 edition of Centre News cover a broad canvas. Two articles – one historical and the other a personal narrative – focus on Jews who survived the Second World War inside the Soviet Union. Both pieces were written by seasoned academics, Dr John Goldlust and Dr Maria Tamarkin, and make fascinating reading.

The saga of the Jews who survived in Shanghai during World War Two, like the story of those who survived in the Soviet Union, has often been by-passed by historians of the Holocaust era, who tend to focus on Poland, the Balkans, Central and Western Europe. The Melbourne Holocaust Museum, however, has a keen interest in the stories of the ‘Shanghailanders’ and, against the background of the exhibition on Shanghai Jewry currently featured at the MHM, this period in Jewish history is highlighted by Horst Eisfelder who spent the war years as a youngster in Shanghai.

Centre News readers will ‘meet’ Tim Chan, an exceptional young man who, diagnosed with autism at the age of three, has written a ‘must read’ article.

And there is much more!

If you have not yet read and enjoyed the September 2015 edition of Centre News, please take the opportunity to do so.