Recently, Holocaust survivor Lena Goldstein (nee Midler) turned 100. Lena was born in 1919 in Lublin, Poland. She was confined in the Warsaw Ghetto, from which she eventually escaped in April 1943.

Following her escape from the ghetto, Lena was hidden by a Polish caretaker for 18 months. Later, her hiding spot was an underground bunker, cramped together with eight others. Lena set to writing a satirical newsletter for her companions in the bunker, “just to put some humour into the tragic life that we were living in the bunker.”

Lena was liberated in January 1945. She married Alexander Goldstein and immigrated to Australia in 1949.

Since 2007, Lena has volunteered her time at the Sydney Jewish Museum, delivering her testimony and talking to visiting student groups. Lena is adamant that her story be told by the Museum well into the future, so that “the future generations know what we had to go through.”

'If I survive', a biography of Lena Goldstein's life written by author Barbara Miller, is available on the Museum's online shop.

To purchase a copy, follow the link below.

Our new human rights exhibition, ‘The Holocaust and Human Rights’, was developed to provoke engagement with contemporary human rights issues in Australia against the backdrop of the Museum’s Holocaust exhibition. This extension of our Holocaust content aimed to bring the Museum into the national and global conversation about human rights.

The exhibition takes as its starting point the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which was deemed necessary following the criminal acts of genocide perpetrated against civilians by the Nazis in the 1940s. The exhibition brings this content into a contemporary context to encourage visitors to connect with current issues and learn about all facets of the human rights violations, successes and debates.

The exhibition was researched and developed by a team of academics, educators, curators and designers over three years, with the assistance and support from a grant from the Australian Research Council. The 'Holocaust and Human Rights' was officially opened by Australian Human Rights Commissioner Edward Santow in February 2018

The Sydney Jewish Museum’s free app, SJM Voices, offers the opportunity to listen to the testimonies of Holocaust survivors, perpetrators, witnesses and experts. Listen to the voices of history on your device as you move through the Museum.

SJM Voices is a custom curated app that uses an internal global positioning system to bring testimony and story of the Holocaust into the present within the Museum’s walls.

Drawing on the Museum’s rich repository of survivor testimony, the app embeds survivor narrative alongside stories from perpetrators and witnesses. The app delivers personal and multi-perspective insight into this turbulent period of history.

Once you’ve visited the Museum and used the app, email yourself a record of your journey.

You can download the app to your iPhone ahead of time via the link below. If you have an Android phone, pick up a compatible device at admissions upon arrival at the Museum.

Please note, the SJM Voices app only works in the Museum.