Holocaust Artifacts

What the Artifacts of the Holocaust Tells about the Jews’ Conditions during the Nazi Era

The Holocaust refers to all the actions that were carried out by the Nazi regime against the Jews in Germany between 1933 and 1945. The Holocaust Artifacts are artifacts that emphasizes on the stories of the victims of the Holocaust and are displayed in Museum. Material artifacts of the Holocaust are a powerful signifier of the Nazi era. This is because they carry and convey the materials trace of authentic experience (Stier 10). The question of the research is to find out using the Holocaust artifacts whether the Jews really underwent a lot of suffering during the Nazi regime. And at the same time, the role of the aura of the artifacts displayed in Yad

Holocaust objects are not an exception. That is to say, the artifacts identify objects that tell the story of individuals, families, and groups that experienced the Holocaust so that they may be used for research and display. Eye glasses, shoes, suit cases, prosthetic limbs are the most common remnants derived from human experience of that period. All of these artifacts witness the mass murder of the Holocaust by indicating the absence of human bearers and wearers of these objects. Given that, philosopher Giambattista claims that objects are “manifest testimony” and carry greater authority than mere text. As a matter of fact, objects can act as witnesses and bear testimony in the sense that testify to the time and place whence they came. They belong to a different world, and thank to their authentic presence we can come closer to that distant, vanished world through them (Hansen-Glucklich 120). Thus, the authentic artifacts play a crucial role in museum exhibits because they can be presented as a witness for the atrocity of their victims. equally importantly, the framing of the authentic artifacts, the display of photographic images, and the commission of the original artworks in Holocaust museums and exhibits do not simply illustrate the story being told; rather, they are story, and they largely determine how we remember the past and, therefore, how we understand the present”

They, as remnants not only attest the atrocities that took place, especially in the concentration camp, but also bring strong images, memories, and feelings to our mind. That’s to say, they are not just a general symbols of the holocaust. By way of illustration, children’s shoes may evoke to different images of the Holocaust. They add a new level of memory and meaning. According to Janet Liebman Jacobs, the viewer immediately becomes witness to all that is left of the prisoners; dust covered and aging shoes that speak to the former lives of children, laborers, women, and men whose previous existence is imagined in the roughness of a work boot, the fragility of a silk high heel, or the smallness of a child’s sandal. Shoes, undoubtedly, as artifacts can represent the horror and atrocity of Shoah. For example, if a museum exhibits shows a picture of shoe or not an authentic one, the visitor will not get the same feeling or the image as the authentic artifacts because the effect will be totally different. For the picture or the replica artifact, it is just a material thing, which has no a specific aura neither value nor has effect on the visitors’ experience or feelings since they will not be connected or contextualize the horrible event in a specific time or place. On the other hand, for the authentic artifacts, the opposite is true. Also, as reported by Christina Chavarria, the shoes