Holocaust Museum of Oporto

Last updated

The Holocaust Museum of Oporto (Portuguese : Museu de Holocausto do Porto) is a Holocaust museum founded in 2021. [1]

The main themes treated at the new Museum are Jewish life before the Holocaust, Nazism, Nazi expansion in Europe, the ghettoes, refugees, concentration, labour and extermination camps, the Final Solution, the death marches, liberation, the postwar Jewish population, the foundation of the State of Israel, win or starve, the Righteous Among the Nations. [2]

Visitors to the Museum will see a reproduction of the dorms of Auschwitz, a names room, a flame memorial, cinema, conference room, study centre, corridors with the complete narrative and, in the image of the Holocaust Washington Museum, photographs and screens showing films about the before, during and after the tragedy. [3]

TimeOut classified the Holocaust Museum as the best museum in the city of Oporto [4] and in the first month it received around 10,000 visitors. [5]

The Museum is run by members of the Jewish community of Oporto. [6] [7] Luísa Finkelstein recalls the members of her family “who were shot by firing squads after being forced to dig a mass grave". Deborah Walfrid relates that her grandparents “were executed in Poland, after their heads were shaved, numbers were tattooed on their arms and they were used as slave labour”. Eta Rabinowicz Pressman recounts how two generations of her family imprisoned in Eastern Europe died: “In one case, the porter of the building wanted to save the children but they refused and said they wanted to go with their parents. They also died. The only surviving brother was imprisoned by the Soviets in a gulag in Siberia.” Other members of the Jewish community here in Oporto have stories to tell about relatives who managed to escape from Treblinka or were forced to play the violin in Theresienstadt propaganda camp and even about German patriots who were accused of being unwanted aliens and assassinated. [8]

The Museum also has a testimony from a victim of Auschwitz's “Angel of Death” - Chaja Lassmann – who is the mother of one of the members of the Jewish Community of Oporto who run the city's Holocaust Museum. Chaja says she is amazed that she could have children after the repeated experiences to which she was submitted. [9]

In an article published in the United States of America on the importance of the Holocaust Museum of Oporto, the Portuguese writer and journalist Miriam Assor wrote that "as a daughter of the rabbi who led the Jewish community of Lisbon for 50 years, born in a country where Jews were expelled five centuries ago—and living in a Europe where more and more people hate Jews, Judaism and Israel—I am infused with a sense of security from the museum. It is a reminder that the phrase “Never again”—about the savage murder of 6 million Jews in a genocide designed down to the last millimetre —cannot and must not be reduced to an epigraph." [10]

According to the official site of the Jewish Community of Oporto, the Holocaust Museum is included in a strategy to fight anti-Semitism, comprised already by the Jewish Museum of Oporto, school visits to the synagogue, courses for teachers, historical films and charity missions in partnership with Oporto Diocese.

The Holocaust Museum of Oporto has signed a cooperation protocol with Oporto's Jewish Museum to combat antisemitism in Europe. "These museums in Oporto should serve as a beacon of light to the rest of Europe, a land darkened today by resurgent antisemitism," President of B'nai B'rith International Charles Kaufman said [11]

In the meantime, Jonathan Greenblatt, the National Director of ADL, proudly announced that "The new Jewish museum will add to the respect and admiration many have for the Jewish people and the Holocaust museum will impart the lessons that all must heed: Don’t be silent in the face of evil. The more people know about the Jewish people, the less susceptible they are to hateful conspiracy theories and malign stereotypes." [12]

On May 20, 2021, the Mayor of Oporto spoke publicly with members of the local Jewish community about the great importance of the Holocaust Museum for the city. [13]

The Holocaust Museum of Oporto is donating its guestbooks to Israel's Yad Vashem via the Israeli embassy in Portugal, according to a museum representative [14] [15] and, in a ceremony at the Museum in November 2021, the International Observatory of Human Rights honored all victims of the Holocaust in the presence of two hundred students. [16] [17]

Related Research Articles

Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against, Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by the concept of anti-Judaism, which is distinct from antisemitism itself.

New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, typically manifesting itself as anti-Zionism. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working definition of antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s.

A Holocaust memorial day or Holocaust remembrance day is an annual observance to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, the genocide of six million Jews and of millions of other Holocaust victims by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. Many countries, primarily in Europe, have designated national dates of commemoration. In 2005, the United Nations instituted an international observance, International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

After the fall of Communism in Poland in 1989, Jewish cultural, social, and religious life has experienced a revival. Many historical issues related to the Holocaust and the period of Soviet domination (1945–1989) in the country – suppressed by Communist censorship – have been reevaluated and publicly discussed leading to better understanding and visible improvement in Polish–Jewish relations. In 1990, there were 3,800 Jews in Poland, 0.01% of Poland’s population, compared to 3,250,000 before 1939. The number had dropped to 3,200 in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">March of the Living</span> Annual international Holocaust education and remembrance program

The March of the Living is an annual educational program which brings students from around the world to Poland, where they explore the remnants of the Holocaust. On Holocaust Memorial Day observed in the Jewish calendar, thousands of participants march silently from Auschwitz to Birkenau.

The Community Security Trust (CST) is a British charity whose stated mission is to provide safety, security, and advice to the Jewish community in the UK. It provides advice, training, representation and research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in Portugal</span> Ethnic group

The history of the Jews in Portugal reaches back over two thousand years and is directly related to Sephardi history, a Jewish ethnic division that represents communities that originated in the Iberian Peninsula. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Portuguese Jews emigrated to a number of European cities outside Portugal, where they established new Portuguese Jewish communities, including in Hamburg, Antwerp, and the Netherlands, which remained connected culturally and economically, in an international commercial network during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in Belgium</span> Ethnic group

The history of the Jews in Belgium goes back to the 1st century CE until today. The Jewish community numbered 66,000 on the eve of the Second World War but after the war and the Holocaust, now is less than half that number.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aftermath of the Holocaust</span>

The Holocaust had a deep effect on society both in Europe and the rest of the world, and today its consequences are still being felt, both by children and adults whose ancestors were victims of this genocide.

Antisemitism, the prejudice or discrimination against Jews, has had a long history since the ancient times. While antisemitism had already been prevalent in ancient Greece and Roman Empire, its institutionalization in European Christianity after the destruction of the ancient Jewish cultural center in Jerusalem caused two millennia of segregation, expulsions, persecutions, pogroms, genocides of Jews, which culminated in the 20th-century Holocaust in Nazi German-occupied European states, where 67% European Jews were murdered.

Secondary antisemitism is a distinct form of antisemitism which is said to have appeared after the end of World War II. Secondary antisemitism is often explained as being caused by the Holocaust, as opposed to existing in spite of it. One frequently quoted formulation of the concept, first published in Henryk M. Broder's 1986 book Der Ewige Antisemit, stems from the Israeli psychiatrist Zvi Rex, who once remarked: "The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz." The term was coined by Peter Schönbach, a Frankfurt School co-worker of Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, based on their critical theory.

Antisemitism in Canada is the manifestation of hatred, hostility, harm, prejudice or discrimination against the Canadian Jewish people or Judaism as a religious, ethnic or racial group.

The World Holocaust Forum is a series of events aimed at preserving the memory of the Holocaust. It is also known as the "Let My People Live!" Forum.

Catherine Chatterley is a Canadian historian, specializing in the study of modern European history, the Holocaust, and research on antisemitism, and is the Founding Director of the Canadian Institute for the Study of Antisemitism (CISA). Chatterley is Founding Editor-in-Chief of Antisemitism Studies, the first scholarly journal devoted to the study of antisemitism. It is published by Indiana University Press. Chatterley appeared in the documentary called "Unmasked: Judeophobia" (2011), where she was one of the scholars interviewed. That same year, she was invited as an expert scholar to participate in the Canadian All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism, which produced the Ottawa Protocol.

Antisemitism in France has become heightened since the late 20th century and into the 21st century. In the early 21st century, most Jews in France, like most Muslims in France, are of North African origin. France has the largest population of Jews in the diaspora after the United States—an estimated 500,000–600,000 persons. Paris has the highest population, followed by Marseille, which has 70,000 Jews. Expressions of antisemitism were seen to rise during the Six-Day War of 1967 and the French anti-Zionist campaign of the 1970s and 1980s. Following the electoral successes achieved by the extreme right-wing National Front and an increasing denial of the Holocaust among some persons in the 1990s, surveys showed an increase in stereotypical antisemitic beliefs among the general French population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kadoorie Synagogue</span> Orthodox synagogue in Porto, Portugal

The Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue, also the Porto Synagogue, is an Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located at 340 Guerra Junqueiro Street, in the civil parish of Lordelo do Ouro e Massarelos, the municipality of Porto, in the northern region of Portugal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yaakov Hagoel</span> Chairman of the World Zionist Organization

Yaakov Hagoel, is the Chairman of the Executive of the World Zionist Organization. He was formerly acting chairman of The Jewish Agency for Israel.

The Holocaust Museum in Curitiba is a museum situated in the city of Curitiba, capital of the Brazilian state of Paraná.

Belgium is a European country with a Jewish population of approximately 35,000 out of a total population of about 11.4 million. It is among the countries experiencing an increase in both antisemitic attitudes and in physical attacks on Jews.

Following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war, there has been a surge of antisemitism around the world. Israeli Immigration Minister Ofir Sofer has stated that Israel is bracing to expect a large wave of Jews migrating to Israel due to the rising antisemitism around the world.

References

  1. ↑ "First Holocaust museum to be inaugurated in Oporto, Portugal". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. 13 January 2021. Retrieved 2021-04-23.
  2. ↑ "Holocaust Museum to be inaugurated in Oporto". Israel Hayom. 2021-01-13. Retrieved 2021-04-23.
  3. ↑ "Jewish Community of Oporto". jewishcommunityofoporto.blogspot.com (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 2021-04-23.
  4. ↑ "Museu do Holocausto do Porto: para memória futura". Time Out Porto (in Portuguese). 31 March 2021. Retrieved 2021-04-23.
  5. ↑ "New Portuguese Holocaust museum receives 1,000 visitors in first month". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. 18 May 2021. Retrieved 2021-05-18.
  6. ↑ Holocaust Museum of Oporto , retrieved 2021-07-27
  7. ↑ Testimony of a Holocaust survivor , retrieved 2021-07-27
  8. ↑ "Museu do Holocausto do Porto abre na segunda-feira". www.jn.pt (in Portuguese). Retrieved 2021-04-23.
  9. ↑ "Testimony of 96-Year-Old Auschwitz Survivor Featured in New Holocaust Museum of Oporto Video". Combat Anti-Semitism. 19 April 2021. Retrieved 2021-04-23.
  10. ↑ Assor, Miriam (11 April 2021). "The importance of the Oporto Holocaust Museum". JNS.org. Retrieved 2021-04-23.
  11. ↑ "Porto Holocaust Museum inaugurated ahead of remembrance events". Israel Hayom. Retrieved 2021-04-23.
  12. ↑ "Portugal opens the doors to Oporto Holocaust museum". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com. 8 April 2021. Retrieved 2021-04-23.
  13. ↑ "Watch: Cities Fighting Antisemitism and Fostering Interfaith Tolerance - A Conversation with Porto Mayor Rui Moreira". Combat Anti-Semitism. 20 May 2021. Retrieved 2021-05-25.
  14. ↑ "Holocaust Museum of Oporto donates guestbooks to Yad Vashem". JNS.org. 2021-07-19. Retrieved 2021-07-19.
  15. ↑ Holocaust Museum of Oporto - Statements , retrieved 2021-07-27
  16. ↑ 7Margens (2021-12-05). "Vítimas da Shoah homenageadas no Porto por 200 jovens". Sete Margens. Retrieved 2021-12-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  17. ↑ "Jewish Community of Oporto pays tribute to Holocaust victims". Israel Hayom.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.