abc– The state government will give more than $6 million to the Sydney Jewish Museum in Tuesday’s budget to help upgrade its education facilities for school students.
The funding will pay for a substantial portion of the museum’s planned expansion at Darlinghurst, in the inner East.
Currently there are 40 Holocaust survivors who address student groups visiting the museum, but Treasurer Dominic Perrottet says plans need to be put in place to ensure their stories continue to be told.
“As we come closer to a time when Holocaust survivors will no longer be able to share their stories, this expansion of the Sydney Jewish Museum will provide a vital link to ensure the Holocaust is always remembered by future generations,” the Treasurer said.
“This funding will help preserve the history of the Holocaust and keep alive the memory of victims and survivors, allowing more visitors through a state-of-the-art facility to learn about the history of the Holocaust.”
The museum will use $3.5 million of the funding for a new three-storey education building for school students, while $2.75 million will go towards new exhibition and archive space.
The new space will have galleries of video testimonies of Holocaust survivors, an auditorium and dedicated learning areas as well as sound and video conferencing studios to connect the education programs to rural and remote schools.
Museum CEO Norman Seligman says the facility had long wanted to engage more students, many of whom learn about the holocaust as part of the school curriculum.
“We are extremely pleased that the government of New South Wales has agreed to fund these two projects,” he said
The museum has around 60,000 visitors each year, half of which are students.
It’s expected the upgrade will allow 5,000 more students to go to the museum every year.
The expansion of the exhibition space is expected to start later this year, while construction on the new education building isn’t likely to start until 2023.
The museum will be closed for a small amount of time during construction.
