Blog
April 15, 2016
Emptying the showcases
Working with artefacts can be distressing for our curators, especially when handling material related to the perpetrators of a mass murder.
As the curators take down the Serniki exhibition to prepare for the new Holocaust exhibits, they need to do a stock check: counting the bullets and soil encrusted cartridge cases.
These were found during the archaeological excavation of a mass murder site in Serniki, Ukraine, in 1990. They were later tendered as material evidence in the war crimes trial in Australia in 1992.
The Jews of Serniki were murdered in one day in early September 1942. The German execution squad arrived shortly before lunch and left in the late afternoon. With the help of local collaborators, the Jews were rounded up and brought to a pit 40 metres long and 5 metres wide on the outskirts of the village. The victims were shot and clubbed to death.
Author – Roslyn Sugarman, Curator.
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