An interrupted life. Children in the narrative line of exhibition at the Estonian Jewish Museum

Abstract

The author analyzes the permanent exhibition of the Estonian Jewish Museum (Eesti Juudi Muuseum). Using the methods of visual studies (composition, content, material objects, and meanings), he tries to find out the place of the youngest victims of the Holocaust in the narrative line of the exhibition. He asks whether there are separate elements of the permanent exhibition devoted to them, or whether the children’s fates are “inscribed” in the general message about the events documented there. Do the museum’s creators focus on the tragic dimension of the children’s fates or do they present them through the prism of heroic deeds, showing the individuals who performed them? And finally, is there a place to present the survivors? The research, the results of which are presented in the paper, also aims to answer the question of whether the narrative line of the museum is dedicated to specific individuals or to a community of anonymous participants of war events. The research shows that the Holocaust story presented at the Estonian Jewish Museum focuses on the loss and suffering that resulted in interrupted lives. The perspective of the victims dominates the analyzed exhibitions. Civilian victims of occupation and genocide are at the center of the exhibition. They are not ‘heroic victims’, i.e. heroes who achieve a moral victory by dying in the fight for freedom or honor. It is death that becomes the key category present in the exhibition, even if it is not always expressed.