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Philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist George Santayana had once said, “The one who does not remember history is bound to live it through again.” The Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre, Melbourne actually makes one feel the horrors of Holocaust to ensure that history doesn’t get repeated. A walk down the corridors of the Jewish Holocaust Museum will bring you upfront with the tears, tensions, turbulence and torture of the Holocaust days and all that the Jews had been made to suffer. The Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre, Melbourne is a memorial for the six million-odd Jews who were massacred in the years between 1933 and 1945. The Centre was founded in 1984, funded largely by the Holocaust survivors, their families and an idealistic crowd that dreamed of ridding the world of racial prejudices. A hearty donation from the late Mina Fink, in memory of her husband, Leo Fink, helped the Centre buy an old two-storey building and later remodel it to lodge an exhibition space and a library. By and by, the premises expanded. So did the activities of the Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre, which began to host seminars that gave the people a platform to voice their views and educational programs that helped to get the message out. The Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre, Melbourne is much more than just a museum that houses the personal belongings of the victims and official documents that contain nothing more than a bunch of dates and statistics. The Jewish Holocaust Museum is managed by volunteers who have survived the days of Holocaust who take you through the gores of genocide with their experiences. The goal of the Melbourne Jewish Holocaust Museum is to bring forth the truth behind the Holocaust and ensure that the knowledge and the understanding go on to keep at bay the evils of Anti-Semitism and racial discrimination. Films like Schindler’s List are few and far apart. Meanwhile, it is only up to the efforts of institutions like the Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre, Australia to ensure that the Holocaust days are not forgotten. It may not be the largest of the Melbourne museums, but the Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre; Melbourne is one museum that will bring forth powerful sentiments. It is one of the several Melbourne tourist attractions, sans the style, glamour and beauty that still draw a steady stream of visitors.
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