Between memory and mission

In a border town called Choszczno in Poland, a young woman was taken for forced labour in 1942.

In the Austrian camp of Mauthausen, a Polish political prisoner endured three years of Nazi persecution.

Neither was Jewish. Both survived.

And decades later, their granddaughter would discover their stories only after dedicating her professional life to Holocaust education—a revelation that speaks to the complex layers of memory, identity, and purpose that Dr Breann Fallon brings to her new role as CEO of the Melbourne Holocaust Museum.

“I always knew that my paternal grandparents had gone through something in the Holocaust, but I didn’t actually know what that was,” Dr Fallon reflects, describing a journey that began not with family history but with academic conviction.

After completing a PhD at the University of Sydney focused on religion, violence and genocide, she joined the Sydney Jewish Museum in 2017 as a part-time educator.

It was only years into this work that she uncovered the specifics of her grandparents’ persecution—her grandfather’s imprisonment as a Polish political prisoner, her grandmother’s years of forced labour.

The story of how her grandparents found each other reads like something from another era, yet carries profound relevance for understanding displacement and resilience.

Unable to secure an American visa due to trachoma on his lungs, her grandfather managed to get to Australia.

Her grandmother, unmarried and deemed “unskilled,” needed a sponsor.

Friends in Queanbeyan couldn’t afford to help but suggested she write to a Polish man across the street.

“Will you marry me and sponsor me to come to Australia and we’ll start a new life?” she wrote to this stranger. He said yes.

They met for the first time when she arrived in Australia—a photograph Dr Fallon treasures, noting the striking resemblance between herself and her grandmother, with whom she shared a birthday.

This personal history positions Dr Fallon uniquely within the Australian Holocaust education landscape.

As a non-Jewish leader of a Jewish institution, she occupies what she describes as “a very interesting space between having a personal connection, but also being a member of, really the audience that we want to get to, which is the non-Jewish audience.”

Her appointment comes at a critical juncture. Antisemitic incidents in Australia have surged to unprecedented levels, and the role of Holocaust education in combating contemporary hatred has never been more urgent—or more contested.

Dr Fallon acknowledges this tension but reframes it: “If we forget or if we let that go, we are not only doing a great disrespect to those people who were murdered and survived, but we’re also doing a great disservice to ourselves in that, you know, history doesn’t repeat, it rhymes.”

Under her leadership, the museum aims to be “as much about history as it is about skills”—teaching visitors how to identify hatred and antisemitism, how to recognise warning signs, how to prioritise empathy and humanity.

This educational mission extends beyond scheduled school visits. Dr Fallon envisions the museum as a lifelong resource.

“I want people to think of this museum as if I want to be a good human, where do I go to learn about that? I go to the Holocaust Museum.”

The ambition is substantial.

“I want us to be thought of like how people think of Yad Vashem or the United State Holocaust Memorial Museum,” she states, positioning the Melbourne institution on the international stage.

Yet this global vision remains grounded in local community service. She describes her role as fundamentally one of service—to survivors, volunteers, staff, and the broader community.

What makes the Melbourne Holocaust Museum special, she insists, is its “soulfulness”—a quality inherited from its survivor founders and maintained through human connection.

“When a visitor comes through, or a school student, they meet another person, whether it’s a survivor or one of our volunteers or our team members. And that is what makes us special, is that we retain that humanity, and when empathy is going offline in the current world, that humanity is more important than ever.”

The museum’s role in addressing modern antisemitism involves collaboration across Jewish institutions, creating what Dr Fallon describes as “multiple touch points across an individual’s life.”

But it also requires wrestling with how historical education translates to contemporary understanding.

When companies send employees on Holocaust museum tours as remediation for antisemitic incidents, does this truly address the problem?

Dr Fallon suggests the museum’s value lies not in quick fixes but in developing deeper understanding of “the mindset of why people will participate” in hatred.

Her vision balances remembrance with resilience, what she calls “vicarious resilience”—drawing strength from stories of resistance, whether spiritual resistance in concentration camp bunkers or the courage of non-Jewish rescuers.

“As much as we are a museum that deals with really heavy content, you can leave this place with hope as well. We’re a place where hope shines brighter than hate.”

Dr Fallon’s appointment represents both continuity and evolution for the Melbourne Holocaust Museum.

As survivor voices inevitably fade, institutions like hers must navigate the transition from lived memory to historical education while maintaining authentic connection to the past.

Her unexpected discovery of her own family’s story—after choosing this path independently—suggests that sometimes purpose precedes understanding, and that the work of memory can reveal unexpected personal truths.

“I often think that she sort of was kind of guiding me in this direction,” Dr Fallon says of her grandmother, with whom she shared that birthday.

In a sense, her leadership represents a closing of circles—between past and present, Jewish and non-Jewish experience, personal connection and professional mission.

In an era when Holocaust memory faces both denial and misuse, her approach offers something vital – a commitment to maintaining the human essence of this history while ensuring its lessons reach those who most need to hear them.