Decolonizing the Holocaust: Curatorial Possibilities at the Montreal Holocaust Museum

The author notes that heritage professionals across Canada and around the world are beginning to explore how decolonization can be applied to museum exhibits, collections, and programing. The Montreal Holocaust Museum (MHM), which was founded by survivors in 1979 and launched its current permanent exhibit in 2003, recently announced that it will be relocating to a new building and updating its exhibit. As such, the author points out, this is an ideal time to consider how the MHM can respond to the changing landscape of museum practice in the twenty-first century. Is decolonization a process that can be meaningfully applied to Holocaust museums and, if so, how can the MHM’s permanent exhibit critically engage with issues surrounding settler colonialism and Indigeneity? The author explores three narrative themes within the museum: Canadian history; human rights; and Palestine/Israel. He points out that while the exhibit reinscribes settler colonial narratives and ideologies, it also contains multiple entry points that curators can use to deploy decolonial museum practices. The author concludes that a decolonial MHM can retain its specific focus on the genocide of European Jewry while also illuminating the colonial structures that visitors, museum content, and Holocaust memory are entwined within. The Montreal Holocaust Museum will open its doors to the public in 2027 to a new location in the heart of the Montreal’s cultural sector, at 3535 Saint-Laurent Boulevard.

Journal of the Canadian Historical Association / Revue de la Société historique du Canada

2022

Vol. 32

no. 2

45-72

en