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for aesthetic, religious or political relations between the Holocaust and redemption
may, in the perpetrators' mind, provide a justification for the terror 5 .
The current transformation of the paradigm of the commemoration and representation
of the past poses new challenges for museum and memorial places. Museums
(and the histories they create) are one of the ways that people refer to the issues and
ideas pertaining to themselves and their past. Exhibitions do not explain the past but
they merely provide an interpretation in the context of present social and individual
experiences of the exhibition creators. The past, as it can be viewed in museums, is not
in fact what actually happened, it is not the truth of the past but a concept, probably
unachievable or non-existent in reality, something that Canizzo named, "negotiated
reality" 6 . It is the product of the present and reflects the current assumptions and judgments
of the exhibition designer. Piotr Unger says:
"The basic medium used by all museums is the exhibit — [that is] a relic or document
related to specific past human activity. The informative role however is achieved not by individual
exhibits but by the way they are arranged in collections, created in accordance with
a specific principle and central idea in order to form a museum exhibition. The exhibition
consists of not only collections of exhibits but also of the architectural and graphic design as
well as auxiliary materials such as, maps, blueprints, diagrams, explanatory texts, etc. all these
elements constitute a form of historical narrative" 7 .
Consequently, the role of the exhibition designer is of utmost importance and the
museum stories are intended to strengthen or legitimise the prevailing social and political
standards of the present time 8 . Thus, we must accept that the history presented
in a museum tells both the story of the past, and of the present, of what people know
and of what people feel, of historical facts and of the reactions and attitudes to these
facts 9 . It is in the museum where the official versions of the past called history meets
the individual experience called memory, with the visitors being its living carriers 10 .
The core of the public historical presentation is a specific interpretation strategy
necessary to create a certain vision of the past, and resulting from a compromise between
three involved subjects, the actual originator (historian, designer), the sponsor
and the visitor. The originator must take account of the sponsor's requirements (private
or state sponsor), and the expectations of the visitor. The exerted pressure limits the
5
Cf. YOUNG J. E.: At Memory's Edge. After — Images of the Hobcaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture.
New Haven — London 2000, p. 2.
6
CANIZZO J.: How Sweet It Is. Cultural Politics in Barbados. Muse, 1987, Winter. After: KAVA-
NAGH G., op. cit., p. 6
7
UNGER P.: Muzea w nauczaniu historii. Warszawa 1988, p. 17.
8
Cf. SHANKS M.,TILLEYC.: Re-Constructing Archaeology. Theory and Practice. London 1992. After
OWEN J.: Making Histories from Archaeology. [In:] Making Histories in Museums, p. 203.
9
KAVANAGH G.: Preface. [In:] Making Histories in Museums, p. XII -XIII.
10 Cf. KAVANAGH G., op. cit., p. 1.
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