Shoah museum to open next year
The Queensland Holocaust Museum will be established through $3.5 million in funding each from the state and federal governments, with Brisbane City Council pledging $500,000.
The Queensland Holocaust Museum and Education Centre will open to the public in 2023, it was announced last week.
A first for Queensland, it will be established through $3.5 million in funding each from the state and federal governments, with Brisbane City Council pledging $500,000.
“It will honour the legacy of those who faced awful atrocities and will also feature locally recorded stories and will be able to reach the regions through online and mobile exhibits,” Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said. “It will ensure future generations do not forget.”
Museum chairman Jason Steinberg said with 60 per cent of Jewish Queenslanders having reported experiencing antisemitism, the lessons of the Holocaust are more important than ever.
“We will remember those who perished at the hands of the Nazis … and we will honour those who survived, as well as those that protected and saved lives,” he said.
“We will educate Queenslanders, Australian and international visitors about the atrocities of the Holocaust, and most importantly we will teach tolerance, acceptance and harmony and give people the courage to stand up against all types of racism, hatred, indifference and antisemitism.”
A “world first” online Holocaust museum is also being created, he said. “At the start of COVID, many museums globally established an online presence based on their physical museums by providing 360-degree tours, webinars and education resources. We thought differently and our digital offering will set a new world standard.”
Queensland Minister for Multicultural Affairs Leanne Linard said a partnership between the museum and the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane will see it located in Brisbane’s Cathedral Precinct.
“The centre has cemented national and international partnerships to receive artefacts, education and training materials, video stories and displays to share and exhibit,” Linard added. “Locally recorded stories of Holocaust survivors living in Queensland will feature prominently.”
Archbishop Mark Coleridge said it was an honour to partner with the centre. “As a society, we need to work together towards a common goal that overcomes hatred and promotes peace.
“Inter-religious partnerships like this send a strong signal to the community that we are all sisters and brothers in a world where the other is not my enemy,” he said.
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