Shoah Part 1 Introduction

Question 1

What does Shoah mean?

Answer 1

Catastrophe

Question 2

Which language is Shoah from?

Answer 2

Hebrew

Question 3

What does Holocaust mean?

Answer 3

consumed by fire

Question 4

where does the term holocaust come from?

Answer 4

Greek

Question 5

why do many Europeans not like the term Holocaust?

Answer 5

connotations of sacrifice about it

Question 6

What does the Yiddish work Khurban mean?

Answer 6

destruction

Question 7

What does Khurban refer to?

Answer 7

used to denote the Holocaust and the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem - Babylonians in 6th century BC and Romans in 70 CE

Question 8

What does diaspora mean?

Answer 8

exile of Jews from the land of Israel

Question 9

From what did contemporary museums develop from?

Answer 9

early modern cabinets of curiosity and private collections

Question 10

What is the present form of museums

Answer 10

archaeological and ethnographic artefacts

Question 11

What is different about museums when compared to contemporary museums?

Answer 11

display objects which referred to people, cultures and historical events that were temporally, graphically or culturally distant

Question 12

What are the challenges associated with commemorating the murder of Jews?

Answer 12

whole communities were wiped out - people, possessions, places of worship and culture

Question 13

Why has there been an increase in Holocaust museums in recent years

Answer 13

tensions of forgetting difficult - post war many who survived would find it too painful and also many of the perpetrators were still living

Question 14

what are the different strategies of representing absence?

Answer 14

immediate context of time and place
emotions triggered by objects too strong
allow visitors imagination to fill gaps

Question 15

What is significant about museums and memorials conveying the horror of Shoah?

Answer 15

absence of objects

Question 16

Objects in museums are said to have different values. What are they?

Answer 16

authenticity
rarity/ uniqueness
'beauty in themselves'
contextual value
relic value

Question 17

Can artefacts be ‘beautiful in themselves’?

Answer 17

doubtful
taste is culturally acquired
museums put on display what the public will find appealing
museums reinforce cultural predisposition

Question 18

what is relic value in the context of museums?

Answer 18

objects venerated for their association with a set of beliefs

Question 19

Why would museums display modern reconstructions of objects? And what form do they take?

Answer 19

explain things e.g. Models, diagrams, reconstructions and re-enactments

Question 20

What are the three main purposes that Museum curators have to satisfy?

Answer 20

conserve and preserve objects
political aims (funding)
attract the public

Question 21

what is present in most museum displays?

Answer 21

mix of ‘authentic objects’ and storytelling

Question 22

What important role do museums play?

Answer 22

advocating sense of being ‘cultured’ - museums to educate all visitors in this regard

Question 23

In what way can objects be used to communicate ideas?

Answer 23

context - location is important and has significance

Question 24

Who designed the ‘Shoes on the Danube promenade?

Answer 24

Gyula Pauer - sculptor

Can Togay - film director

Question 25

When was the memorial ‘Shoes on the Danube promenade’ created?

Answer 25

2005

Question 26

What constitutes the memorial ‘Shoes on the Danube promenade’?

Answer 26

60 pairs of bronze shoes on the banks of the Danube

300m from the Hungarian parliament building in Budapest

Question 27

What does the memorial ‘Shoes on the Danube promenade’ commemorate?

Answer 27

the shooting of people from the Jewish ghetto in Budapest in 1944

Question 28

Who killed the people at the site of the Shoes on the Danube promenade?

Answer 28

Arrow Cross Hungarian fascist militia

Question 29

Approximately how many people were killed on the Danube?

Answer 29

10,000

Question 30

Are the shoes on the Danube authentic?

Answer 30

no, they are constructed

Question 31

Why are the shoes on the Danube significant?

Answer 31

context - memorial of Arrow Cross atrocities

Question 32

what do the shoes represent on the edge of the Danube?

Answer 32

look as if just been worn

range of identities - gender, social & professional categories