Europe emerged from the Second World War utterly broken, with millions of refugees scattered across many countries. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was created to resettle those displaced by the mayhem of the war and the Holocaust. The fragments from the past illuminate the work of UNRRA administrators, and chart how, in the aftermath of catastrophic loss, Holocaust survivors navigated their new lives in displaced persons camps. The exhibition is sourced with artefacts and documents from the archives of the United Nations and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, and draws upon the expertise of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at the Graduate Center—CUNY. The exhibition was created by the Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme and Professor Debórah Dwork, together with the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Archives, the United Nations Archives and Records Management Services, and with generous support of Stockton University.
The exhibition was on view at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 10 January – 23 February 2023. It has also been shown at the following locations:
- Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida, September 2023 (Maitland, United States)
- Holocaust Museum in Buenos Aires, April-June 2023 (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
- Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, January-April 2023 (Shanghai, China)
- Stockton University, March-April 2022 (Galloway, United States)
- United Nations Headquarters, January-February 2022 (New York, United States)
- Vienna International Centre, January 2022 (Vienna, Austria)
More traveling exhibitions are being planned with partner institutions in Canada and Australia.
The poster set of the exhibition contains 25 panels (24 x 36 inches), and is available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.
Interested in co-hosting an exhibition? Please email holocaustremembrance@un.org.