Press Release - The International Freedom Center

April, 2005

Historic Site Museums of Conscience Inspire Center

The International Freedom Center has drawn inspiration-and received some important practical advice-from a global collection of important new museums banded together as the International Coalition of Historic Site Museums of Conscience. The Coalition at its 2003 annual conference endorsed the Center's bid for designation as a cultural institution at the World Trade Center site, calling the Center "an unparalleled opportunity to make a unique and important contribution to world understanding."

"We imagine," the Coalition members wrote, "a museum whose central narrative is an examination of the ways freedom has been defined over time throughout the world, the struggles to achieve it, and the factors that have determined whether it was won or lost. Such a museum could set the idea of freedom in an international perspective, offering hope to all people all over the world, that freedom was rightfully theirs. It could assist people in developing strategies to achieve and maintain their freedoms. It could serve as a basis for dialogue among people everywhere." Center editorial director Philip Kunhardt attended the Coalition's 2004 annual conference in Terezin, in the Czech Republic, and the Center continues its dialogue with the Coalition.

The Coalition of Historic Site Museums demonstrates the special power of historic sites. As the Coalition has declared, "Whether it interprets great good or great evil, whether it preserves a cultural or an environmental resource, a historic site has unique power to inspire social consciousness and action. By opening new conversations about contemporary issues in historical perspective, historic sites can become new town halls, central to civic life and democracy."

And the opportunity offered by such sites is extraordinary. While the museums in the Coalition are each distinct and free-standing, they "hold in common the belief that it is the obligation of historic sites to assist the public in drawing connections between the history of our site and its contemporary implications. We view stimulating dialogue on pressing social issues and promoting humanitarian and democratic values as a primary function."

It is expected that temporary exhibits at the International Freedom Center will originate at, or travel to, some of the Historic Site Museums of Conscience.

A brief look at some of the museums in the Coalition tells this tale powerfully:

District Six Museum (Cape Town, South Africa)- Until bulldozed to create a whites-only area pursuant to apartheid policies between 1966 and 1981, District Six was a vibrant black neighborhood. Located in a renovated and restored church, it now bears testimony to forced removals, and the courage of those who faced them.

Gulag Museum at Perm 36 (Perm, Russia)-The only one of the Stalinist labor camps still standing, this site was used to imprison leading dissidents as late as 1987. It was converted into a museum as a joint project of the Memorial Society (founded by Andrei Sakharov) and the regional government.

Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles)-This museum, operated in conjunction with the adjacent National Center for the Preservation of Democracy, was founded on the site of a Buddhist Temple that served as an assembly point for Americans sent to internment camps in 1942, and as a storage place for their belongings while they remained in detention throughout World War II.

Lower East Side Tenement Museum (New York)-Located in a restored tenement house on Orchard Street, this building housed over 7000 immigrants from 20 different countries over a period of 68 years; it brings their stories to life in a way that would simply be impossible otherwise, and in a manner that focuses attention on contemporary immigration issues.

Maison des Esclaves (Goree Island, Senegal)-A site of the slave trade for more than three hundred years, from 1536-1848, this museum is located in a slave house that dates from the 1780s. The island, a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1978, hosted a pivotal 1987 meeting between prominent Afrikaaners and Nelson Mandela's African National Congress.

Memoria Abierta (Buenos Aires, Argentina)-A coalition of eight Argentine human rights groups has come together in this organization to memorialize the "disappeared" of 1976-1983. A Memory Park has been created, and a Museum of Memory is in the works.

Terezin Memorial (Terezin, Czech Republic)-During World War II, this town was turned into a Jewish ghetto, and its Small Fortress into a Gestapo prison. More than 2500 people perished in the prison, while the town became a transit station to the death camps, with 83,000 people being sent from Terezin onward to extermination. Today, a Ghetto Museum has arisen, as well as a restored barracks. Terezin is a powerful holocaust memorial and museum.

Women's Rights National Historic Park (Seneca Falls, New York)- The restored structures in this park include the Wesleyan Chapel, 1848 site of the First Women's Rights Convention, and the home of Convention organizer Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

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