Collection: National Holocaust Centre

Collection-level records:

• Collection history (Collection development policy)

  The National Holocaust Centre & Museum was founded in 1995 by the Smith family. Inspired by a visit to Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust museum, this Christian family felt it was their responsibility to address the role that Christianity had played in propagating and normalising anti-Jewish prejudice over many centuries, which created the preconditions for the Nazi Holocaust. James and Stephen believed that their own Holocaust education at school had lacked depth, and did not empower them and their peers to consider what the Holocaust might mean for us as individuals today. After their Yad Vashedm visit, the family created, on their own rural property, a place where UK-based survivors of the Holocaust could come together, share their testimonies, and educate new generations. A rapidly growing ‘family’ of survivors worked tirelessly with the Smiths to record their testimonies for future generations, and Holocaust education sessions were developed using their accounts. Many survivors also entrusted us with personal belongings that played a crucial role in their stories. Deeply significant artefacts such as family photographs, camp uniforms, travel documents and yellow stars formed the basis of the Centre’s collections. For some survivors, these objects were the only remaining physical links to their pre-Holocaust lives and families who were lost. These items became powerful physical additions to the survivors’ testimonies in our collections. On this basis, the Centre evolved into a full-scale museum, and many of our objects now feature in two permanent exhibitions. Over four decades, we also expanded the scope of our collections, to cover other important dimensions of the story of anti-Jewish racism and perpetrator motivations. Many collection items today form part of our award-winning immersive exhibition “The Journey”, the only museum exhibition in the UK dedicated to teaching younger children about Jewish identities and refugees, as well as our Holocaust exhibition, which is constantly refreshed and updated. In addition, the collection plays an integral role in a lively programme of national and international touring exhibitions, in our extensive education programmes on site and in outreach programmes, and in a variety of innovative digital experiences.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2024

  Licence: CC BY-NC

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  The National Holocaust Centre and Museum preserves a unique and internationally significant collection donated by survivors, their families, and individuals with a personal connection to the Holocaust. It consists of testimony recordings as well as material evidence of the Holocaust unique in the UK. From the 1990s, the Smith family recorded testimony of survivors. Over time, our testimony collection has grown to more than 300 recordings: the most recent ones form the ‘Forever Project’, which are interactive recordings that allow users to ask their own questions of our survivors. In addition, the museum collection comprises rare artefacts, photographs, documents, and ephemera. A third type of collection items are artworks and sculptures, most of which were created by Holocaust survivors and their descendants, and many of which are displayed in our Memorial Hall and in our beautiful commemorative gardens. Currently, the museum houses close to 4,000 artefacts and artworks.

  The collection covers nine broad themes:

  • Pre-war Jewish life in Europe, especially of Holocaust survivors, victims and their families.

  • The historical foundations and contemporary expressions of anti-Jewish racism.

  • Anti-Jewish propaganda, laws and policies under Nazi rule and Nazi occupation, and in Nazi-allied countries.

  • Daily life under Nazi rule, for Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. Jewish strategies of survival and resistance.

  • The experiences of Jewish refugees from the Nazi regime.

  • Life in ghettos, in places of hiding, on deportations, and in concentration, labour, and extermination camps. Sites of murder, both inside and beyond the camp system.

  • Liberation.

  • Ego-documents by, and documents about, the behaviours of perpetrators, bystanders and rescuers.

  • Post-war life of Holocaust survivors and their families.

  In addition, our collection comprises selected artefacts documenting the genocide of Roma and Sinti communities, and those persecuted by the Nazi regime for political and religious reasons, or as part of eugenics programmes.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2024

  Licence: CC BY-NC