In preparation for its planned relocation and expansion, the Montreal Holocaust Museum is seeking to enhance its collection of artifacts related to the history of the Shoah, as well as its bank of survivor testimonials.

The museum currently preserves over 13,100 objects, a number that continues to grow with donations from survivors and their descendants.

In addition, it has archived more than 800 video testimonies.

The types of objects sought by the museum include:

personal items, such as religious objects, jewelry, musical instruments and currency;

personal papers, such as documents, letters, memoirs and scrapbooks;

books, pamphlets, prints, advertisements and maps;

historical photos or footage, personal photos and albums;

written or recorded testimonies (sound or video);

furnishings, architectural fragments, models, machinery and tools; and

textiles, such as uniforms, costumes, clothing, badges, armbands, flags and banners.

Items in the collection are used to illustrate:

prewar life of Jewish communities persecuted by the Nazis;

the crimes and rise to power of the Nazis and their collaborators;

the world’s response to the Nazi regime;

resistance, rescue, life in hiding and liberation;

the pursuit of justice (restitution and war crime trials);

the postwar experience of survivors (life in displaced persons camps);

Jewish life after the war;

the immigration of survivors and their families to Canada; and

early 20th-century anti-Semitism and fascism in Canada.

READ: BOOKS SAVED FROM THE HOLOCAUST ENLIGHTEN MONTREALERS

The museum continues to search for survivors of ghettos, labour camps, death camps and forced labour brigades to invite them to record their stories, as well as hidden children, partisans, liberators, rescuers and anyone who fled from the Nazis or who was removed from their place of work, home or school due to their Jewish origins.

To donate an object to the museum, contact Marie-Blanche Fourcade at 514-345-2605 ext. 3022, or [email protected] To record a testimony, contact Eszter Andor at 514-345-2605 ext. 3093, or [email protected]

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