caust. Their personal interests, cultural prejudices and concepts forced them to shape and mould their perspective of the past. The Sydney Jewish Museum informed that during the Holocaust a total of 5,860,000 Jewish people were slaughtered, but what the museum failed to inform was that a further 5,000,000 were also killed. This further 5,000,000 consisted of Polish Christians and Catholics, the well educated and anyone physically or mentally handicapped. The composition of the museum also played an important part in the representation of the Holocaust. The entrance and the whole of the bottom floor was made from a grey mottled marble type of material. Such a choice, in the colour and material of the floor set the solemn mood and tone that was to follow. In the front foyer there were a number of large plaques with the names on those Jews who were either killed or went missing during the Holocaust and numerous stained glass windows depicting scenes from the Holocaust, covered the walls. The solemn mood was carried through the rest of the museum by the use of specific lightening, music, colour, diagrams, choice of achieves, photos and pictures. The composition of the museum has had a major role in the representation of the Holocaust, in that it strongly emphasises the hardships and horrific events many of the Jews experienced. The ‘history’ presented through the Jewish museum, although partly true, it is formed by their present cultural feelings, prejudice, values, beliefs, interests and bias, making it to some extent subjective. There can be no objective history of ‘the past as it actually did happen’ there can only be present day historical interpretations, none of which are final. Despite histories subjective elements, it is still a great deal more objective than memory. Unlike memory, which is fragmented, full of gaps without any chronological order, history has an organised structure. History is a record. It c...
