80 Objects — 80 Lives

The 80 Objects – 80 Lives digital Social Media exhibition, a legacy project to mark the United Kingdom presidency of the International Holocaust and Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), in co-operation with the Association of Jewish Refugees and the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, will present 80 objects from the private collections of Holocaust survivors and refugees, who settled in the UK. Objects like a teddy bear, a dolls, a set of house keys, a spoon, or a typewriter, take on important meanings, when they become remnants of a lost world. A passport with the letter J, a yellow star, a bowl from Bergen-Belsen, become material witnesses of atrocities and persecution.    

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The 80 objects, artefacts, photographs, documents and everyday items, create a tangible link to the lives of each interviewee; to the before of a disrupted past and the traumatic experience of discrimination, exclusion, emigration, and survival. The objects are the carriers of memory and they connect the interviewees to lost communities, lost family members, and lost possessions.   

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80 Objects – 80 Lives will provide an encounter with the women and men who have given testimony to the AJR Refugee Voices Archive and the Holocaust Memorial Foundation, who will describe in their own words the objects they chose to talk about. 

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The chosen objects are presented in eight sections, according to broader themes. The objects represent the very personal histories of the Jewish Holocaust survivors and refugees before, during, and at the end of the Second World War. 

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80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, 80 Objects – 80 Lives provides a unique pathway into learning more about the Holocaust, learning more about the experiences of displacement and exile, and the stories of survival.    

 

Exhibition Team: 

Curator: Dr Bea Lewkowicz

Designer: Susanna Kleeman

Editor: Simon Waxman

Researcher: Kristin Baumgartner