Reinstated Dignity – Continued Silencing. Violent, Gendered Imagery in Holocaust Web Exhibitions

Abstract

This paper examines how and to what effect recent trends regarding the use of violent imagery in exhibitions on Nazi mass atrocities transpire online. Analysing 87 web exhibitions by the three internationally most influential museums on the Shoah, it becomes evident that these museums avoid displaying graphic images of violence. However, an analysis of imagery that exhibitions produce linguistically unearths apparent dissonances. On the one hand, the aim of restoring the dignity of victims and giving them a voice marks a central feature of all examples. On the other hand, online exhibitions on the Shoah largely rely on stereotypes in gendered perceptions and narratives of extreme violence. The paper traces the impact of tropes that invoke gendered concepts of power and agency and argues that they limit curators’ ability to explain and analyse the pretext and events of the Shoah.