Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education
Human Rights After the Holocaust
At the beginning of 2023 OJMCHE embarked on an ambitious museum remodel, adding 1,000 sf of lofty gallery space to its footprint, and using this space to house a new permanent core exhibit: Human Rights After The Holocaust. Curated by Scott Miller from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., this heartbreaking — and ultimately hopeful — exhibit explores the intellectual and legal foundations of human rights law, which came out of the urgent desire to prevent another Holocaust with the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, but which has been more commonly used to prosecute ongoing atrocities in Bosnia, Rwanda, Bangladesh and elsewhere. Exhibit panels, object casework, and video interviews present stories of human rights abuse and genocide around the world — from post-WWII to the present day — including examples from Oregon. The exhibit is balanced with three large-format touchscreen interactives which highlight abundant examples of local, statewide and international activism. Visitors are invited to consider the question: “How do you turn hope into action?” as part of the exhibit experience.
