New Perth Holocaust Education Centre opens

A new Holocaust education centre has opened in Perth, delivering on a $1.8 million WA government commitment towards the fit-out of the exhibition space.

The Liminal Space, at the JHub Maccabi Community Centre in Yokine, was created by the Holocaust Institute of Western Australia within 320 square metres provided by Maccabi WA inside the new community centre building.

Holocaust Institute president Sol Majteles said the two were separate projects delivered under the same grants — Maccabi building the community centre, and the institute creating the education centre inside an empty space.

He said the exhibition was unlike any other Holocaust centre or museum anywhere in the world. Rather than a ticketed walk-through at a visitor’s own pace, it is a curated, narrated one-hour journey with a guide, with every visitor wearing a headset.

“The first part is a psychological, physiological exercise in making you think about how your brain operates,” Majteles said, describing a section on what leads people to form opinions about others.

The exhibition then traces the rise of antisemitism from 1930 through the Holocaust, using recorded testimony from Perth survivors, drawn from the institute’s own recordings and the Shoah Foundation archive.

“You will hear from people who actually were in Kristallnacht, who were in a cattle wagon on the way to a camp, who were in hiding, who were in the camp,” he said.

At the end, visitors meet 13 of those survivors pictorially, seeing photographs of the voices they have been listening to, before a short debrief on how thinking can change.

Majteles said the design committee had torn up its original plans after October 7.

“If you do the same thing over and over and expect a different result, guess what? That’s the definition of idiocy,” he said. “So we said, well, maybe it’s time we did something different.”

He named the exhibition’s co-creators as the institute’s director of education Judith Lawrence and artistic director Talya Mossenson, who led a six-member design committee and were the driving force behind the concept, content and creation of the project.

Authenticity drove the design, with original and historically accurate objects and sound effects throughout. The sound designer recorded in Germany, and the birds heard in one section were recorded at the former Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg.

Majteles said the aim was to change hearts and minds, and that it might take a generation.

“We live in a country, Australia, that I didn’t grow up in. I don’t know where this antisemitism is coming out of the woodwork from. All of a sudden, it’s fashionable to be an antisemite,” he said.

The institute, established in 1990, previously put between 3000 and 4000 high school students a year through a three-hour education program.

Majteles said last Thursday’s launch was a joint function between Maccabi and the institute to thank the state and federal governments, philanthropists, major donors, builders and designers who made the project possible, rather than a public opening.

The centre is fully booked with school groups through September and October, and he said it was unlikely to open to the general public until later in the year.

The Commonwealth committed $2 million over four years from January 2025 towards the centre’s running costs. The state government has provided more than $8.3 million to the JHub Maccabi Community Centre since 2020.

Federal Multicultural Affairs Minister Anne Aly, who went through the exhibition before the launch, said her earlier academic work interviewing former white supremacists about why they left hate behind had produced a simple conclusion.

“Nobody ever left hate behind because they were presented with a fact sheet — ever,” Aly said. “To change hearts and to change minds and subsequently to change behaviours, you must hit an emotional chord. You must make people feel, and you must make people think.”

She paid tribute to Lawrence and Mossenson, saying the exhibition was underpinned by a dedication to not just telling visitors what happened during the Holocaust but forcing them to reflect on the future.

“It hits you. It hits you here,” she said, gesturing to her heart, “and that travels up to here,” to her head.

Aly also addressed the Jewish community directly.

“Jewish Australians should never have to question their belonging in this country. Never have to hide who you are, downplay your faith, and wonder whether you belong. You belong. You do. You’re an integral part of the Australian story.”

Premier Roger Cook said the centre would ensure Western Australians could learn about one of the darkest chapters in recent history. “Educating future generations will help ensure the horrors of the Holocaust are never forgotten and never repeated,” Cook said.

Multicultural interests minister Jessica Stojkovski said it would play a vital role in ensuring current and future generations understood the devastating consequences of hatred, prejudice and discrimination. “There is no place in our society for antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism or any form of hatred,” she said.

Mount Lawley MLA Frank Paolino, who made the centre an election commitment, described it as an innovative, world-class education centre where people could better understand the Holocaust from a sociological and psychological perspective.

Speaking at the launch, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Patrick Gorman traced the site’s history to the Jewish community members who door-knocked across Perth’s suburbs in the 1950s to raise money to buy and build on the land.

Among them was Joe Berinson, who went on to become the member for Perth and a federal and state minister, and who was present at the opening of the former centre on the site in 1973. Gorman quoted Berinson telling a heated parliamentary debate: “I am only interested in the substance of the problem and the substance is antisemitism, racism, prejudice.”

Gorman said the build had presented an unusual problem for the federal government. “It was not completed on time. It was completed early,” he said, noting the Infrastructure Department had been required to bring forward its payments.

The project began with former treasurer Josh Frydenberg, whose vision was for Holocaust centres across Australia. Visiting Perth, he found the institute in a 50-year-old building that was falling down and asked what a new one would cost. John Schaffer’s back-of-the-envelope figure was $15 million. Majteles said Frydenberg offered $6 million on two conditions: that the state match it, and that the project incorporate what he called a world-class Holocaust education centre. The community raised another $3 million.

Frydenberg, who went through the exhibition before speaking at the launch, said the centre was more important than ever at a time of rising antisemitism.

“As Elie Wiesel reminds us, action is the most powerful remedy to indifference, and one hopes this museum will honour the memory of those that we have lost and make safer the lives of those who carry on,” Frydenberg told The AJN. “The Jewish community in Perth has done a remarkable job bringing this project to life and I hope people from around the country come to see the exhibitions and the vitality of this new precinct.”