in detail
The Holocaust exhibition of the Imperial War Museum is opened by Queen Elisabeth II in 2000.
The exhibition focuses on the disenfranchisement, persecution, deportation and murder of European Jews, but also addresses the persecution of other victim groups such as the Sinti and Roma, the Soviet prisoner of war, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and homosexuals.
The exhibition begins with the end of the First World War. It then presents the history of the National Socialist seizure of power in 1933, the disenfranchisement, persecution and deportation of German Jews and later European Jews, the murder of Jews and other persecuted groups in the concentration and extermination camps. The exhibition closes with the presentation of the Nuremberg war crimes trials.
The exhibition is developed according to a pedagogical concept that employs historical facts accompanied by film and audio recordings of survivors, photographs and historical documents, in order to make the history of antisemitism and persecution of Jewish in Europe particularly accessible to school children and young people.
1917
The Imperial War Museum is founded
1993
Project proposal to create a Holocaust exhibition within the museum
1995
Work on exhibition concepts begin
2000
The Holocaust exhibition is opened by Queen Elisabeth II
2003
The exhibition has had a million visitors
London, 2004, View of the outside of the Imperial War Museums, Imperial War Museum Photo Archive.
London, 2004, Part of the Holocaust exhibition, Imperial War Museum photo archive.