Sydney Jewish Museum

Organisation Archives

---

Authority Biography/Administrative History

This collection contains the institutional records created and maintained by the Sydney Jewish Museum - SJM. Series 001 - 039 shows the various activities, functions, transactions and programmes of SJM.

The Sydney Jewish Museum was opened in November of 1992 in the NSW Jewish War Memorial, Darlinghurst. The Museum was an idea turned reality for Mr John Saunders (1922-1997) who was a survivor of Auschwitz and Dornhau concentration camps. In 1985, Mr John Saunders decided to bring his dreams into fruition after realising there were many whose stories had never been told. By developing and opening the museum, he wished to showcase the stories of Holocaust survivors along with being a representation of Australian Jewry. Fast forward to the present day, the Museum is now recognised and known worldwide with many positive experiences and a great reputation. The vision of the Museum to be an institution that gives history a voice through collecting and preserving historic objects, along with commemorating and educating. The mission is to challenge visitors’ perceptions of morality, social justice, democracy, and human rights. They achieve this through a range permanent, temporary and travelling exhibitions which covers material on Australian Jewry and the Holocaust. The former consists of topics such as Gallipoli, Enid Sylvia Himmelhoch, The Dunera Boys, and Anzacs in the Holy Land. The Latter presents topics such as Nazi Medicine, Signs of Life – Letters of the Holocaust, Liberation of Auschwitz, Exile and Alienation – Austria’s lost Jewish Writers and a Children’s Memorial dedicated to the 1.5million young lives that were taken as a result of the Holocaust (The exhibitions mentioned are some examples from past displays, see the Exhibition list for a more detailed catalogue). The Institutional Archives of the Sydney Jewish Museum holds a large, diverse range of institutional records created and maintained by the SJM which are a result of various activities, functions, transactions, and programmes of the SJM. This includes marketing and promotional material, correspondence, exhibition development plans and proposals, year and visitor books, annual reports and minutes for various gatherings and committees, a wide range of ephemera, foundation documents, photographs, and publications. The collection mainly includes hardcopy correspondence and some audio-visual material. The overall date range of the consignment is 1944-2020.

For more information and an extensive list of series housed in these archives, please see the Archives and Series and Box number tabs.

ProvenanceB7 Sydney Jewish Museum, The - SJM
Scope & ContentThe collection of the Sydney Jewish Museum contains predominately hardcopy material, administrative records, ephemeral material and a large collection of photographs. It also contains audio-visual material . The collection is a disparate rather than a continuous series of records and there was no original order to the records. The Sydney Jewish Museum collection was created and maintained in the course of the business of the organization.
Browse Hierarchy