Museum of Tomorrow Opens Holocaust Exhibition in Rio

By Jay Forte, Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Last week the Museu do Amanhã (Museum of Tomorrow) in Rio de Janeiro opened the exhibition “Holocausto – Trevas e Luz” (Holocaust – Darkness and Light), which will run until October 15th.

The exhibit is a partnership with the city of Rio and the Holocaust Museum in Curitiba, and pays tribute to the six million victims of Nazism in Germany and occupied Europe between 1933 and 1945.

Divided into three modules, the exhibit is on display in the Galeria do Tempo (Time Gallery) space. In the first module, the visitor is invited to reflect on the tragedy through a thematic scenography, which reproduces the typical gas chamber of concentration camps and displays striking period photos and impact phrases.

In the second module, the exhibition pays tribute to so-called ‘righteous nations’, a name given to those who took risks to save persecuted Jewish refugees during World War II. The exhibit ends with works and essays by students, and addresses the Holocaust with warnings to prevent the tragedy from recurring.

“Revisiting the historical fact through this show is a way of revising the past and thinking about the present, and thus consciously choosing the tomorrow we desire. In this sad period of history, the worst human characteristics, such as hatred, intolerance, racism and prejudice prevailed,” said Alfredo Tolmasquim, the director of content for the Museu do Amanhã.

At the exhibition, the public finds pieces like the uniform used in a concentration camp by Hercz Rosenberg, a survivor who came to Brazil after World War II. The exhibition also features works by Fayga Ostrower (1920-2001), a Polish woman who also emigrated to Brazil, fleeing Nazism, and here she became an award-winning artist.

Rio’s Mayor Marcelo Crivella, who toured the show on Tuesday (July 25th), and told reporters, “The massacre of six million people is something that needs to be remembered. I wanted to invite boys and girls from the public network, our young people and the families of Rio, so that they could know what that tragedy was.”

What: Holocausto – Trevas e Luz
When: July 26th to October 15th, Tuesday to Sunday from 10AM to 5PM
Where: Galeria do Tempo at the Museu da Manhã, Praça Mauá, 1 – Centro, Rio de Janeiro
Entrance: R$20, R$10 half price students