“Really Made You Feel for the Jews Who Went Through This Terrible Time in History”

Abstract

The study of Holocaust mediation and narrativization in history museums and memorials is quite well established, not so the research of history and Holocaust audiences’ participation in the shape of remediation and re-narrativization. This study responds to the two shifts museums have undertaken: (i) from collection- and information-centred institutions, to institutions that are centred around audiences, experiences, and narratives; and (ii) museums’ mediatic turn, which stresses participatory processes through platforms that are employed to engage audiences (inside and outside museums). The chapter reports on a study of Holocaust museum audiences’ reviews on the world's largest online commenting platform – Google Maps, taking the Florida Holocaust Museum as a case study. Texts uploaded to online review sites are publicly accessible and viewable, and serve as re-mediations of the museum visit as well as offsite markers. Findings show that over a third of audience's comments re-mediate the museum's narration, by echoing Holocaust-related themes. A similar sized group of texts does not re-mediate the museum's narration whatsoever, and the texts do not echo Holocaust-related themes. Lastly, a quarter of the texts address the museum's narration in broad and categorical terms. The findings are discussed, promoting our understanding of contemporary Holocaust discourses and audiences’ forms of participation.