Melbourne Holocaust Museum

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Melbourne Holocaust Museum

Founded by Holocaust survivors in 1984, we are Australia’s largest institution dedicated to Holocacaust.
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04/06/2026

'Ruptured: Jewish Women in Australia Reflect on Life Post-October 7' (LJLA, 2025) is a brave collection of 36 personal essays that explore the profound fracture that emerged in the wake of that day. The writers chart the personal, everyday toll of unchecked hate, while also showcasing the tenacity and creativity of Jewish women as they grapple with this new reality.

Join us as three of the essayists - Julie Szego, Jemima Montag and Ruby Kraner-Tucci, all descendants of Holocaust survivors - will join Dr Daniel Haumschild, Head of Exhibitions and Storytelling at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, to discuss their essays and to reflect on their experiences since the book’s publication. Expect a candid conversation that traverses intergenerational trauma, navigating antisemitism, the duality of fear and pride, and the vital role of storytelling as both testimony and an act of repair.

📅 23 June, 7pm

Tickets selling fast - secure your spot here: https://ap1.hubs.ly/y0XxHT0

03/06/2026

The Melbourne Holocaust Museum is proud to share its submission to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.

This submission reflects more than 40 years of preserving Holocaust survivor testimony and educating generations of Australians about the dangers of prejudice, hatred, and discrimination. It also reflects the commitment of our survivors, volunteers, donors, educators, staff, and supporters; people like you who make this work possible.

At a time of rising antisemitism and growing social division, we know the lessons of the Holocaust are more important than ever. At the heart of our Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, is a simple but powerful sentiment:

"The Melbourne Holocaust Museum is not simply a museum. It is essential national infrastructure for antisemitism prevention, social cohesion and democratic resilience."

This submission is the result of an extraordinary collective effort. We would like to acknowledge the dedication of our Royal Commission Submission Working Group and the many MHM staff members who contributed their expertise, evidence, insights, and lived experience to this important piece of work. Their commitment has helped articulate both the impact of our work today and the potential for even greater national impact in the future.

Thank you for standing with us. Your support ensures that survivor voices continue to be heard and that their lessons continue to inspire future generations.

Read the full submission here: https://ap1.hubs.ly/y0Xxkw0

02/06/2026

In collaboration with Kadimah and ACJC, join us for the powerful book launch of 'Out of the Depths'. Hear from keynote speaker, Marcia Langton AO and special performance by Adam Starr and Karen Feldman accompanied by Melbourne Klezmer School.

In June 1945, before the full devastation of the Holocaust had emerged, a team of researchers embarked on a remarkable project. While documenting the experiences of Jewish refugees, they began to collect songs composed and sung in the N**i camps and ghettos. The resulting book, Mima’amakim (Out of the depths), was published in a short run of 500 copies. Described by the original editor, Yehuda Eismann, as a ‘memorial stone for Polish Jewry’, the songbook is a timeless document of a people’s despair, hope and strength.

Out of the depths: The first collection of Holocaust songs presents the contents of this extraordinary document for a new generation of readers. Based on a copy of Mima’amakim discovered in 2013, it contains not only the songs’ melodies and lyrics, the latter in a new translation by Joseph Toltz, but also short biographies of the composers, drawn from painstaking original research. Introductory essays provide historical and musicological background, deepening our knowledge of this terrible event and the creative means by which the Jewish people responded to and endured it.

📆 14 June, 2pm

Book tickets here: https://ap1.hubs.ly/y0XykN0

01/06/2026

“I met Madame KNEPPEL Ruth, in November 1943, while she was working for the Resistance transporting letters, weapons, etc. under the noses of the Germans. I can affirm that she did everything in her power to hasten the liberation of France…”

This document , signed in March 1945, certifies Ruth Kneppel (later Stein)’s involvement in the French Resistance.

Ruth, an Austrian Jewish woman, spent the war living as Malou, an Algerian Christian. As a member of the French Underground, she travelled by train and bicycle around southern France, transporting coded messages and weapons between resistance cells. Well-dressed and carrying her young daughter Michèle as a decoy, she evaded suspicion, and used her knowledge of German to eavesdrop of the conversations of enemy soldiers. Only after the liberation of France was Ruth able to reveal her Jewish identity.

You can find Ruth’s experiences, and other accounts of resistance, in our exhibition Everybody Had a Name.

Image | MHM 2358-9

31/05/2026

In April, we gathered for Yom HaShoah 2026 – What We Inherit: Trauma, Memory and the Power of Resilience.

Together, we reflected on how Holocaust memory lives on across generations and what it means to inherit stories shaped by trauma, survival and resilience.

From powerful survivor testimony to thought-provoking panel discussions on inherited trauma and vicarious resilience, the day honoured both the weight of the past and the strength carried forward. Listen to the voices of those who attended, sharing the personal impact this commemoration had on them.

May we continue to remember, to learn, and to bear witness.

28/05/2026

When students visit the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, they learn what hatred can do to real people, and why prejudice must always be challenged before it turns into violence.

Holocaust Survivor Guta Goldstein shares her story with thousands of students and visitors each year. She tells them about the girls she was friends with in the orphanage inside the Łódź Ghetto, young girls with personalities, hopes and dreams, who were taken away one night and murdered.

Guta remembers their names. Their laughter. Their friendships.

Through her testimony, students come to understand that these were not just numbers in history, but children just like themselves.

These stories shape the way young people see the world and the choices they will make within it. They encourage compassion, understanding, and the courage to stand up against hatred in all its forms.

By supporting the Melbourne Holocaust Museum annual appeal, you help ensure these stories continue to inspire a future free from hate.

Donate today to the MHM annual appeal. https://ap1.hubs.ly/y0WKy_0

Photo Credit: Image | Sept 1942 – Children of the Marysin Orphanage lining up to be transported to Chelmno. © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

27/05/2026

Experience Marking Memory, a landmark exhibition by Kathy Temin, now at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum.

Using faux fur to create monumental sculptural works, Temin challenges traditional ideas of memorialisation: exploring memory, loss, inheritance, and the ways remembrance is carried across generations.

Spanning more than two decades of artistic inquiry, the exhibition also features sound installations and survivor testimonies, inviting reflection on both private and collective acts of remembrance.

Marking Memory is now at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum until July 12. Plan your visit via the link in bio.

26/05/2026

Earlier this month, in collaboration with Ajax Football club and Maccabi Australia we gathered for the Yom HaShoah Commemoration. A rare and powerful opportunity for our children to stand alongside Holocaust survivors, arm in arm with football clubs, united in remembrance and in confronting antisemitism.

Together, we remember the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, including 1.5 million children.

25/05/2026

Among the objects in our collection is this document: an original N**i-era naming certificate, issued for the daughter of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust and the man behind the Wannsee Conference, where the systematic murder of Europe's Jews was formalised.

The certificate is a striking example of how ordinary bureaucratic ritual was woven into the fabric of the N**i regime, a record of new life, stamped with its ideology.

Our Head of Exhibitions and Storytelling, Dr Dan Haumschild, walks us through what the document reveals - not just about Heydrich, but about the world that he inhabited and helped to create. He also points to the importance of objects like this in telling the full history of the Holocaust for pulling back the curtain on the culture of those who perpetrated it.

24/05/2026

Holocaust Survivor Guta Goldstein still remembers her friends - the orphaned Jewish girls who lived with her in the Marysin Orphanage inside the Łódź Ghetto.

One night her friends were taken away and murdered. But Guta remembers far more than how they died. She remembers who they were.

Sala had red hair and freckles. She tap danced and made up funny songs that made us laugh, even when we were hungry.

Franka loved books and whistled tunes I still remember today.

Myszka, whose real name was Roska, was small and quick, but she had the biggest heart.

Frajdale was only seven years old, wise beyond her years.

Frania and Rachela were sisters. One day, Rachela simply stopped speaking.

Because Guta’s Aunt Golda risked her own life to save her, Guta survived to carry their names and stories forward.

Now, it is up to all of us to ensure these children are never forgotten.

DONATE TODAY and help ensure there will always be someone left to remember children like Sala, Franka, Myszka, Frajdale, Frania and Rachela. https://ap1.hubs.ly/y0Tntn0

Address

Elsternwick, VIC
3185

Telephone

+61395281985

Website

http://www.mhm.org.au/

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