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| Museum of History and Holocaust Education | |
|---|---|
| Name | Museum of History and Holocaust Education |
| Established | 1979 |
| Location | Cleveland, Ohio |
| Type | History museum and Holocaust museum |
| Collections | Artifacts, documents, oral histories, photographs |
| Director | Dr. Emily Rosen |
Museum of History and Holocaust Education is a combined history and Holocaust museum located on the campus of Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio. The institution documents regional Cleveland history alongside Holocaust remembrance and human rights education, connecting local narratives to global events such as the Holocaust and World War II. The museum collaborates with academic partners including Cleveland State University, Case Western Reserve University, and national organizations like the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to support scholarship, exhibitions, and public programming.
Founded in 1979, the museum emerged amid broader trends in museum development influenced by institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, the National Museum of American History, and the American Alliance of Museums. Early collections were shaped by donations from local families with ties to Greater Cleveland industries like Standard Oil and National Carbon Company, and by survivor communities associated with synagogues such as Temple Tifereth-Israel and Shaarey Tikvah. Expansion phases in the 1990s and 2000s were funded through partnerships with foundations including the Gates Foundation, the Cleveland Foundation, and the Ford Foundation, reflecting models used by the Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews. The museum’s Holocaust galleries were developed with consultation from scholars at Yad Vashem, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, and the Leo Baeck Institute.
The museum’s holdings encompass artifacts and archives related to Cleveland social history, immigration waves tied to the Great Migration and Ellis Island, labor movements represented by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers and the CIO, and Jewish communal life linked to organizations like the Hebrew Union College and the Jewish Federation of Cleveland. Holocaust collections include survivor testimonies connected to ghettos such as the Warsaw Ghetto, camps like Auschwitz concentration camp and Majdanek, and resistance movements exemplified by the Bielski partisans and Warsaw Uprising (1944). Rotating exhibits have featured themes comparable to traveling shows from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Imperial War Museums, and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
Highlights include oral histories with survivors who immigrated through ports of entry like New York Harbor and Boston Harbor, photographs documenting postwar resettlement in neighborhoods such as Asiatown (Cleveland) and Slavic Village, industrial artifacts from plants like Bethlehem Steel and Otis Elevator Company, and educational reconstructions of wartime scenes similar to displays at the Anne Frank House and the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C..
The museum offers curriculum-aligned programs inspired by pedagogical frameworks from Facing History and Ourselves, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the Yad Vashem International School for Holocaust Studies. Programs for K–12 schools include survivor talk series in partnership with school districts such as Cleveland Metropolitan School District and teacher workshops modeled after initiatives from The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism and USHMM Education Department. Specialized seminars address topics found in scholarship by historians like Raul Hilberg, Saul Friedländer, and Deborah Lipstadt, and incorporate primary sources from archives similar to the Wiener Library and the Arolsen Archives.
The museum’s research center houses collections used by scholars researching topics connected to the Nuremberg Trials, the Einsatzgruppen reports, refugee policy debates including the War Refugee Board, and postwar restitution cases linked to the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art. Archivists work with digital preservation partners such as Digital Public Library of America and Europeana to digitize holdings, and faculty collaborations involve departments at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, the Cleveland State University Department of History, and the Max Planck Institute for Human History. The archives include correspondence related to 20th-century migrations, synagogue records from congregations like Temple Beth El (Cedar Sinai) and personal papers comparable to collections at the Leo Baeck Institute New York.
Public programming draws inspiration from national commemorations like Holocaust Memorial Day and civic events hosted by organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland. The museum hosts film series featuring works by directors associated with Steven Spielberg (Schindler's List), Claude Lanzmann (Shoah), and Roman Polanski (The Pianist), and speaker events with scholars and public figures tied to institutions like Brandeis University, the University of Michigan, and Yale University. Outreach initiatives include traveling exhibits in partnership with regional museums like the Cleveland Museum of Art and community centers including the Jewish Community Center (Cleveland).
Governance is provided by a board of trustees with members from institutions such as Cleveland State University and representatives of organizations such as the Cleveland Foundation, Jewish Federation of Cleveland, and corporate donors including executives from KeyBank and Progressive Corporation. Funding streams include endowment gifts modeled after practices at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and grants from federal agencies like the National Endowment for the Humanities and state arts councils akin to the Ohio Arts Council. Major capital campaigns have involved philanthropists in the mold of Leonard C. Hanna, Rockefeller Foundation initiatives, and local benefactors comparable to supporters of the Great Lakes Science Center.
Located near landmarks such as Cleveland State University campus buildings, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Progressive Field, the museum provides gallery space, a research reading room, a classroom for teacher training, and an auditorium used for screenings and lectures. Visitor amenities include guided tours modeled on practices at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), accessibility services following standards from the Americans with Disabilities Act implementations, on-site parking near East 12th Street (Cleveland), and connections to public transit operated by the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority. Seasonal hours align with academic calendars at Cleveland State University.
Category:Museums in Cleveland Category:Holocaust museums in the United States