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The Museum
The Montreal Holocaust Memorial Museum tells the story of Jewish communities before, during and after the Holocaust.
Pierre Saint-Jacques Photo
Permanent Exhibition
Museum Entrance - MHMC Photo
- Life before the war and the Holocaust. Here we learn about the customs, holidays, and the cultural diversity of Jewish communities in Europe and North Africa. Visitors learn about the rise of Nazism and escalating discriminatory policies imposed against Jews in Germany up until the attacks on the Night of Broken Glass, Kristallnacht.
- The Implementation of the Holocaust during World War II: the ghettos, mobile killing units, and camps.
- After the War: liberation, displaced persons camps and immigration problems faced by survivors.
MHMC Photo
The reaction of Quebec and of Canada is regularly examined in relation to these events throughout the exhibition. Archives and artefacts document, for example, antisemitism during the 1930s and after the war when survivors immigrated to Montreal .
Archived photographs and videos give visitors a perspective on the political and cultural context in which the Holocaust took place.
Display cases
The display cases show rare personal objects rescued from the period, such as:
- Identity cards stamped "J" for "Jewish"
- A Shanghai refugee's suitcase from 1938
- An identity number of a Kindertransport child
- Yellow stars worn in France, the Netherlands and in Croatia
- Hidden objects from within the camps
Holocaust Survivor Testimonies
Tobias Deml Photo
Here we learn about the crimes and violence perpetrated against Jews, but also about resistance and the struggle for dignity.
Testimonies add a human dimension and sensitive presentation of the difficult history.
Through the diversity of experiences shared in the Montreal Holocaust Museum, visitors get a sense of the complexity and scale of the Holocaust.