Adelaide Holocaust survivor and sculptor curates

Remember the Holocaust: Art and the Holocaust

The vision and determination of renowned sculptor Andrew Steiner brought an extraordinary exhibition of Holocaust art and artefacts to Adelaide from June until August 2010. A child survivor of the Holocaust, Mr Steiner’s motivation was to educate Adelaide’s young people about the events that took place during his childhood.

The exhibition Remember the Holocaust was held at the Adelaide Migration Museum and was accompanied by an education program of lectures, workshops, discussions and seminars. Mr Steiner devised, financed and curated the exhibition. Our Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne loaned Mr Steiner some items for the exhibition, including an original prisoner’s uniform from a German concentration camp.

The first of its kind to be held in Adelaide, the exhibition attracted many visitors and the extensive education program was well attended. Its success has driven Andrew Steiner to call for the establishment of a Holocaust museum in Adelaide.

Do you have any items relating to the origins of the Jewish Holocaust Centre?

In September 2010 Mr. Tony Lupton, then the State Labor Member for Prahran, announced that the Jewish Holocaust Centre (JHC) had received a Victoria 175 History Grant as part of the celebrations to mark 175 years since the founding of Melbourne. These grants aimed to support community organisations that seek to preserve, publish and commemorate the origins of the founding stories of Victoria.

The grant will be used to find, catalogue and preserve a collection of items relating to the founding and history of the JHC, including the original Yiddish minutes, early documents and photos.

According to the Centre’s Curator and Head of Collections, Jayne Josem: ‘We have an outstanding and significant collection of Holocaust-era material. However, we have not really focused on properly documenting the tremendous history of the Centre itself. From humble beginnings it has become an important educational institution and the story of the survivors who established it needs to be recorded.’

If you have any items of significance relating to the establishment of the JHC, please contact Jayne Josem or Claude Fromm on 9528 1985.