£2 million upgrade and expansion to National Holocaust Museum's exhibition
‘The Journey’ refugee exhibition is now open to the public
The UK's only immersive story-based exhibition about the Nazi persecution of Jews has opened to the public at the National Holocaust Museum in Newark today.
It's part of a £2 million upgrade - which makes this showcase one of only three Holocaust exhibitions in the world appropriate for all ages.
The funding led by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Claims Conference and the Pears Foundation made the renovated exhibition possible, and has brought it to life as it now contains new interactive features, new historical & contemporary refugee content, plus new hidden plot features for visitors to discover.
This takes experiential storytelling to new heights.
It forms part of a £5M site-wide project to renovate the Museum, with principal funding from the Pears Foundation, The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England.
Exhibition Plot
The Journey is the UK’s only immersive story-based exhibition about the Nazi persecution of Jews. It is also one of only three Holocaust exhibitions in the world appropriate for all ages. It immerses you in the life of Leo, a 10 year old German Jewish boy living in Nazi Berlin in 1938.
His story unfolds in a series of elaborately designed period room sets. Each contains a huge assortment of objects and audio-visual clips, embedded within the exhibition set designs for the visitor to discover.
It follow Leo’s journey from happy childhood to persecution; isolation; physical fear as his parent’s tailor’s shop is smashed up during the notorious pogrom known as Kristallnacht; and then escaping on a Kindertransport to a new life in England.
As you sit in the train carriage - your seat reverberating as the train moves away from Berlin, through landscapes and cityscapes across Europe, to reach the Hook of Holland - you are confronted with all the hopes, dreams, fears and worries that have faced so many refugees over time.
In each room, sensors are triggered which activate the display of excerpts from Leo’s diary. We hear him voice the words which write themselves on the page, accompanied by charming doodles. This acts as the narrative backbone in each room.
Director of the National Holocaust Museum Marc Cave said:
"'The Journey’ is now bigger and better equipped than ever to stimulate critical thinking about the ‘othering’ process in the build-up to the Holocaust.
"When we understand what it takes for a child to have to flee for their life, away from everything they know and love — it might also make us think harder about how we welcome and integrate refugees like Leo into our country.
"'The Journey’ poses this thorny question in a creative and immersive way, for people of all ages.”
Aims of the new exhibition
Museum founders Stephen, James and Marina Smith conceived and designed The Journey in 2008 to help build empathy with children forced by Nazi persecution to become refugees.
They created Leo as a composite character based on the testimonies of children who survived the Holocaust, found refuge in Britain and have shared their many stories and belongings with this Museum since 1995.
The new exhibition expands the number of survivors whose content features in the exhibition to 39. This now also includes survivors of the three genocides since the Holocaust as recognised in international tribunals: Cambodia, Srebrenica and Tutsi (Rwanda).
The uniquely immersive nature of The Journey has attracted visitors of all ages, including people who would not otherwise visit a Holocaust museum.
The renovated version adds more space, new features and more interactivity to encourage truly multi-sensory learning and self-guided exploration. Different layers of physical, audio and visual storytelling — using authentic artefacts and testimonies seamlessly embedded into the set designs — allows visitors to choose their own paths through the story.
The Journey is one of the UK’s few examples of multi-layered exhibition storytelling that is customisable to different visitors.
Chair of the National Holocaust Museum Trustee Board, Henry Grunwald OBE KC said:
“This exciting creative project has been made possible by wonderful benefactors.
"We’d like to thank in particular The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Claims Conference, our long standing partners the Pears Foundation, Arts Council England and The Association of Jewish Refugees. And of course, we are profoundly grateful to all the survivor refugees on whose stories The Journey is based”.