Exhibiting the Holocaust, Exhibiting the Self: Museum Tour Narratives and Post-Holocaust American Identity

This article summarizes research from the author's master's thesis, “Exhibiting the Holocaust: Museum Tour Narratives as Presentations of Institutional Post-Holocaust American Identity” (MA Thesis, Brandeis University, 2012). The work was conducted to position American Holocaust memorialization within the context of key American Holocaust museum narratives and exhibition displays. The two museums central to this study—the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) and the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust (MJH)—shed light on the American, Jewish, and Jewish-American understandings of the European Holocaust. Both institutions consciously attempt to intersect and merge American and Jewish ideals, interests, and values, often with one perspective dominating another for specific purposes to be discussed.