The House of Peace

 Yesterday I visited, with my Derbyshire cousin, the National Holocaust Centre and Museum. You can be forgiven if you've never heard of it – neither had I – as it is not widely publicised, and it is located in what could with some justice be called the middle of nowhere. To be precise, it is deep in rural Nottinghamshire, near the village of Laxton, where England's last working example of the medieval open field system of cultivation is to be found. The National Holocaust Centre, or Beth Shalom (house of peace), was established by a Christian family, the Smiths,  who were inspired by visiting Yad Vashem, Israel's national holocaust memorial. Their aim was to educate visitors – children in particular – in the realities of the Shoah, as part of the great effort to ensure that it is never forgotten and never repeated. The museum building, which used to be the Smith family home, stands amid gardens which were naturally not looking their best on a drear November day. The museum tells the story of the Holocaust in two permanent exhibitions: one is an excellent historical display with good use of oral testimony, audio, visuals and artefacts, and an emphasis on survivors' stories; and the other, aimed at children, in the form of The Journey, a more immersive and interactive telling of the story of a Jewish boy who manages to escape the Nazi persecution on a Kindertransport. 
  The main display makes a good job of setting the Holocaust in its historical context, as one manifestation – the worst and most deadly – of a deep-rooted, ongoing hatred of Jews. Though it gives the facts and figures, it is reticent about the details of what actually went on in the camps, but that is perhaps just as well – the display packs enough of a punch to make its point. The only real weakness, I thought, was that it did not carry the story up to the present, taking in the great surge in antisemitism that followed the 7th October pogrom (perhaps there are plans to do so?). As it happens, though, that job is being done at present (until next spring) by Fabricated?, a rather wonderful exhibition of works and artefacts by Caren Garfen, who specialises in embroidery, often of texts reproduced in tiny stitches, forcing the viewer to come in close and absorb the message. Some of the work illuminates the past, but much of it chronicles the terrible things that have been happening since October 7th.  One of the exhibits, for example, is an old-fashioned typewriter from which spills a roll of paper bearing a list of recent antisemitic incidents, all of it, incredibly, embroidered in tiny stitches (and the 'paper' is of course cloth). It's hard to describe Fabricated?, but you can read more about it here. It is an intensely moving exhibition, and makes a visit to this extraordinary museum even more worthwhile. It's the only museum of its kind in England, and it deserves to be better known.