Praise for Belgian Holocaust museum at European Awards

Mechelen’s Kazerne Dossin Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights has been given a special commendation at the European Museum of the Year Awards (EMYA), which took place in Tallinn, Estonia at the weekend.

The jury paired the prize with the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial in Germany. “A joint special commendation goes to these two museums for their courage in opening up their institutions to the future and seeking new ‘ownership’ relationships, within the context of the Second World War,” the jury wrote. “Both these museum memorials – by way of their ideas – have the potential to professionally influence their genre of museums.”

The jury described Dossin as “a museum that makes clear statements and is thereby exceptionally courageous and embraces the future.”

Kazerne Dossin’s general manager Herman Van Goethem said: “From here on, and together with Flossenbürg, we can not only build a new network with other museums, we can also try to expand our educational project on collective violence to new target groups, such as the press or youth movements.”

Kazerne Dossin was the only Belgian museum to be nominated for the European Museum of the Year, an honour that went to the Museum of Innocence in Istanbul, created by the Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk and based on his novel of the same name.

The EMYA is administered by the European Museum Forum to encourage the exchange of innovative museum practices in its 47 member countries. In 2011, the Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren won the top prize, while Antwerp city museum MAS won last year’s Silletto Prize, awarded to a museum for its work with the local community and the involvement of volunteers.

photo by Alan Hope