Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett is a highly regarded scholar who is the chief curator of the Core Exhibition at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, located in Warsaw, Poland. She insists the recently enacted Polish law banning the teaching of negative things about the Polish role during the Holocaust will not affect the intellectual honesty or integrity of the museum. 

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, professor emerita of performance studies at New York University, is credited with having played a key role in establishing the museum, which opened in 2013, on the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  The core exhibition documents the thousand-year history of the Jewish community in Poland, which was decimated in the Holocaust.  The museum won the European Museum of the Year award in 2016.

She will speak at a Holocaust Museum and Learning Center of St. Louis program on Oct. 11, at which she will explore how museums can play a vital role in presenting difficult histories in ways that are “authoritative, without being authoritarian” while remaining “zones of trust,” where difficult moment can be confronted and discussed (see infobox for details). She will also give a talk on “Rising from the Rubble: Creating POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews,” at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 9 at the Missouri History Museum (visit www.mohistory.org for more information).  

The Light caught up with Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, who is Jewish, for a phone interview. 

You played an instrumental role in the establishment of the POLIN Museum of the History of the Polish Jews.  What steps did you take to accomplish this?

I served as a consultant in 2002 when the concept of the museum was developed, and then I was hired for the development of the permanent exhibition in 2006.  It is located near the site of what was the Warsaw Ghetto.   

Is the POLIN Museum a Holocaust Museum like Yad Vashem or the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington?

No, it is a Museum of the entire 1,000 years of the history of the Jews in Poland, which of course includes the Holocaust, but is not its principal focus. 

What was the Jewish population of Poland before the Nazis invaded it on Sept. 1, 1939; what was it in 1945 when World War II ended, and what is its present Jewish population?

Before the Nazi invasion in 1939, there were 3.3 million Jews in Poland.  By the end of the war, only 250,000 survived—mostly those who had escaped into the Soviet Union or who hid in Poland. The present Jewish population cannot be determined, since there is no formal census based on religion.

The Polish parliament recently passed a controversial law banning teaching negative facts about the role of Poland during the Shoah.  How will this law affect the ability of the POLIN Museum to do its work  with integrity and historic accuracy?

That law was ill-advised and regrettable, but it will not affect the work of the POLIN Museum.  The museum is a public-private partnership, which prevents any interference with our work and its accuracy. The Polish government wants to protect Polish pride as a nation. It does not deny that individual Poles persecuted Jews during the Holocaust. Again, we are not a Holocaust Museum.  The Holocaust was a critical part of that history, but our scope is the totality of the history of the Jews in Poland.

Does the POLIN Museum collaborate with other museums around the world?

Yes. We have sponsored workshops, and worked with Jewish museums in London. We exchange ideas and share research. We have also worked with Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and museums in Tel Aviv.