An uncertain future: Jewish refugee artefacts in New Zealand and their ‘return’ to Germany

Tuhinga 28: 49-62

ABSTRACT: The absence of artefacts in many Jewish museums today is due to the widescale destruction, plundering and displacement of people and their possessions during the 1941–45 Holocaust. While some European institutions actually hoarded large Judaica collections in this period, countless Jewish objects went into exile with refugee families. The main methods used by European Jewish museums to offset this deficiency (through narrative display, and by seeking object donations from these refugee families) raise critical museological questions regarding the representation and ‘repatriation’ of these exilic objects. Not only are donated Jewish refugee objects (as opposed to artefacts appropriated illegally) largely absent from European museum collections; they also rarely inhabit cultural heritage collections in New Zealand. The material culture objects brought to New Zealand in the 1930s by Jewish refugees are today mainly held in the private homes of descendants. However, the significant lack of a dedicated, permanent collection space capable of accepting these privately held refugee materials constrains the options of the second generation regarding the future preservation of their heritage. This paper explores the current position of New Zealand’s national heritage collecting institutions regarding the acquisition of Jewish refugee objects, their use of such artefacts, and the perspectives of refugee families and their descendants as potential donors.

KEYWORDS: Refugees, museum, New Zealand, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Germany, Holocaust, Jewish artefacts, exile, archives, heritage.