Museums that Matter. Editorial Introduction

If you used to think of museums as just timeless spaces where objects of the past are preserved forever and at the same time, they are dull spaces where you must read texts while standing, you were fundamentally wrong.The fact that Russian invading troops with skilled professionals are looting museums in Ukraine proves how important these places are.It also proves that the illusion that visitors learn and become better people after viewing the exhibition is not accurate.It is difficult to find a direct link between visiting the exhibition and changing one's viewpoints.The Russian soldiers who probably also were museum visitors at some point in their lives and who are now under orders or they themselves are destroying and looting museums in Ukraine demonstrates that a new era has begun for museums in Europe.The critical role of museums and the evolving landscape of Holocaust museums prompted Eastern European Holocaust Studies to dedicate this entire issue to this topic.Museum studies is a fascinating and evolving field, which is why this themed issue includes four interviews: one with Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, the founding director of POLIN, two others with academics Roni Mikel Arieli and Katrin Antweiler, and finally, a fourth one with artists Gabriela Buliov and Mark Isaac, who critically engage with the memorialization process.These personal insights into decision-making regarding inclusion and narrative offer a snapshot of the field.This issue explores the role of museums and commemorative practices in Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Japan, Italy, and Russia.The historiographical essay on the post-1945 trials in the Soviet Union, along with the new Jewish Museum of Kaliningrad, examine the Soviet-Russian aspects of this history.The geographical scope is significant because Holocaust museums can no longer be studied solely within a national or Cold War East-West framework anymore.The research papers show that various national actors are skilfully using Holocaust museums to advance their own national mythologies.Museums have always been sites where memory wars are waged.What is new is that this war now literally involves the conflict in Ukraine, as well as the emergence of illiberal Holocaust museums.