Museum of Tolerance
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Museum of Tolerance | |
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| Established | |
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| Location | 9786 W. Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, California |
| Type | Holocaust memorials |
| Website | http://www.museumoftolerance.com |
The Museum of Tolerance (MOT) is a multimedia museum in Los Angeles, California, with an associated museum in New York City, designed to examine racism and prejudice in the United States and the world with a strong focus on the history of the Holocaust. It is sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
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[edit] Los Angeles
The original museum in Los Angeles, California, opened in 1993 and receives 350,000 visitors annually, about a third of which are school-age children. The museum's most talked-about exhibit is "The Holocaust Section," where visitors are divided into groups to take their own place in some of the events of World War II. The power of these experiences is shared with others in discussion afterward.
The museum also features the testimonies of Holocaust survivors, often from live volunteers who tell their stories and answer questions.
People also get cards with pictures of Jewish children on it and at the end of your time at the museum, you will find out if the child on the picture of the card that you have survived or died in the Holocaust.
In addition, the museum features a "Tolerancenter" that discusses issues of prejudice in everyday life, a Multimedia Learning Center, a collection of archives and documents, various temporary exhibits, and an Arts and Lectures Program.
A classroom visit to the museum is featured in the 2007 movie, Freedom Writers, based on the real-life story of high school teacher Erin Gruwell and her students. The museum was parodied in an episode of South Park called "The Death Camp of Tolerance".
[edit] Criticism
One of the primary criticisms of the Museum of Tolerance is that its exhibits use excessive multimedia technology to appeal to and manipulate the emotions of children. The museum uses fast-paced skits, dioramas, films, and interactive computer-controlled exhibits in an effort make an emotional impact on visitors. For most of the tour, actual historical artifacts are absent, and a select few are shown at the end. Some critics have pointed this out as hypocritical, likening the use of emotionally charged media to the propaganda used by the Nazi Party during the Holocaust. The South Park episode The Death Camp of Tolerance features the museum and implicitly makes the same criticism, implying that attempts to force tolerance on people are just as oppressive as the discriminatory forces they are fighting against. However, others have responded that this use of media is an effective way to get the museum's message through to children and foster understanding of prejudice.[1][2]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Marcuse, Harold. "Experiencing the Jewish Holocaust in Los Angeles: The Beit Hashoah—Museum of Tolerance", Other Voices, February 2000. Retrieved on April 12, 2007
- ^ Scott A. Lukas, “A Politics of Reverence and Irreverence: Social Discourse on Theming Controversies,” pp. 271-293 in The Themed Space: Locating Culture, Nation, and Self, ed. Scott A. Lukas (Lanham, MD, Lexington Books, 2007), ISBN: 0739121421
[edit] External links
- Experiencing the Jewish Holocaust in Los Angeles: The Beit Hashoah—Museum of Tolerance, review essay by Harold Marcuse, Other Voices, v2.1, Feb. 2000.
