THE ROLE OF HOLOCAUST MUSEUMS IN EDUCATING SOCIAL DISASTERS

Can design contribute to the end of social disasters such as war? The answer is ‘No’. There is no way anyone can end war. However, there is a way we as designers can prevent it from being repeated. The key to preventing social disasters is ‘education’ via design. It is the role of education to give knowledge about what is happening around the world to the public and to raise awareness. It is the role of designers to convey issues to audiences via effective design communications.

Designers have strived to educate and alert the public about the social disasters through various forms of design such as websites, catalogues and education kit. However, these are often insufficient in delivering traumatic experiences. How does design allow people to experience what the people involved in the war had to go through? How do we represent it in design so the public, especially future generations, learns not to repeat it again? It is argued that placing the public into the actual scenes in the museum environment is the most effective way to raise awareness and educate the audiences.

Holocaust museums adopt different representational methods to convey traumas accordingly to their contents and cultural backgrounds. However, holocaust museums containing traumatic experiences often avoid depicting actual events. In addition, controversies surrounding the status of historical truth and false memory have been constantly raised among the historians and museum designers.

This paper examines various historical museums and their design techniques in maximising the educational value. Based on the findings from the field studies, two museums -War Remnants Museum in Vietnam and Historical Museum of Sexual Slavery by Japan in Korea- are focused in terms of their contrasting techniques adopted in representation of trauma and its contrasting educational value on audiences. 

The writing emphasises the significance of the interactivity between the young audiences and the historical/political contents, and seeks to discover the most effective design method to prevent social disasters from repeating.

Key words: holocaust museum, representation of trauma, education, war.