‘The fight against antisemitism starts in the classroom’ says head of Holocaust museum

Dr Martin Stern MBE (Photo: NHM)[Missing Credit]

Since then, tens of thousands of schoolchildren and other visitors have been through its doors, learning from its exhibitions and hearing the testimonies of Holocaust survivors, several of whom attended the dinner.

Last year, the museum revamped its immersive The Journey exhibition, which lets visitors stand in the shoes of a young Jewish boy called Leo, who goes from a comfortable life in Germany to living through Kristallnacht and eventually coming to the UK on the Kindertransport.

Dawson paid tribute to Marc Cave for his “creative flair”, who announced last month that he was stepping down as CEO, after six years in the post.

Marc Cave introducing the evening (Photo: NHM)[Missing Credit]

Cave was instrumental in launching a number of projects, including the Vicious Circle exhibition, which explores five pogroms in Europe and the Middle East, ending with October 7. It is soon to start a residency with the Austrian government in Vienna before returning to London later in the year.

Cave also set up the museum’s racism response unit, which provides practical tools, education and support to confront anti-Jewish racism wherever in schools, communities or online. “It is aimed at the teachers, those who influence our children and grandchildren, empowering individuals not to be bystanders, but to respond with knowledge and moral clarity,” said Dawson.

In addition, Cave developed the touring exhibition I Say British, You Say Jewish, which challenges people’s stereotypes.

NHM dinner attendees (Photo: NHM)[Missing Credit]

Dawson said that the success of the museum’s education was that it went beyond facts and figures by presenting the human stories from the Holocaust.

“[Visitors] encounter letters, photographs, and personal artefacts that turn history from something distant into something deeply human. In those moments, the Holocaust stops being a page in a textbook and becomes a moral lesson about choices.”

He said that a key aim of the museum was to ensure that young people become “critical thinkers - people willing to question and challenge, not to accept and follow.

“The work of the museum is vital. The school children of all ethnicity and backgrounds from all over who take part in our workshops, who walk through our exhibits, they are the future. These are the next generation of teachers, politicians and opinion makers.”

Other speakers included Holocaust survivor Dr Martin Stern MBE, museum co-founder Dr Stephen Smith, dinner host Lady Fiorella Massey and the museum’s head of education, Nicola Strauther.