Hidden: Seven Children Saved

MHM’s brief was to craft an experience that respects history while inspiring hope within a compact 1000-sq-ft space that needed to accommodate tour groups of up to 60 students at a time. Joining the project mid-way through, the team faced challenges integrating their design with a pre-existing structural layout and walls while aiming to foster a seamless visitor flow. To bring these harrowing yet hopeful stories to life for a younger audience, they employed the ”Safely In, Safely Out” educational pedagogy, emphasising the careful introduction and conclusion of difficult historical content to ensure the safety and well-being of young visitors.

The team aimed to create a personal connection between visitors and the child survivors, focusing on the extraordinary lives of seven children through stories narrated by local youth. Each child’s badge unlocks personal stories, tracing their journey from pre-war peace through Nazi persecution to resettlement in Australia. Leveraging the Museum’s collection of first-person testimonies, personal artefacts, and photographs, the team orchestrated the visitor experience much like a wandering theatrical production. With thoughtful choreography to manage visitor flow, they crafted a captivating journey into the survivors’ stories through cinematic soundscapes, projection mapping, colourful illustrations, physical dioramas, and playful interactive spaces.

The impact of ”Hidden” goes beyond historical facts, linking Holocaust lessons with universal values that promote human rights. Telling the survivors’ stories in a youthful first-person voice allows children to relate to the survivors as people beyond historical figures. This experience allows young people to reflect on their role in fostering a more empathetic, compassionate world where they’re empowered to stand against modern injustices. The overall experience stands as a testament to human resilience, highlighting the power of empathy and kindness to triumph over adversity, inspiring hope and action in all who visit the exhibition.

Upon entering, students are greeted by large-scale portraits, establishing a connection with the child survivor they will accompany throughout the exhibit. The opposite wall features family photos and soundscapes that depict the vibrancy of Jewish life before the war. ‘The Village’ represents Jewish communal life. A white diorama with tiny streets and buildings evokes the architecture of Poland, Germany, and France, serving as a canvas for storytelling, depicting life before, during, and after Nazi rule. A panoramic film and soundscapes breathe life into the village as projection-mapped silhouettes of residents fade, symbolising worsening conditions. Students peer through windows with headphones to discover animated dioramas narrated in the child’s voice, recounting the crisis and providing a personal window into their experiences. In ’Hiding,’ students navigate a maze of cubbies, closets, and corners, embodying the seclusion their survivor endured. Motion sensors and light-up cues reveal hidden objects, sounds, and animations narrating survivors’ stories of loss, risk, and bravery, emphasising acts of kindness. Guided back to The Village at Liberation, projected animations depict reunions and grief, the families altered, as the survivors decide to leave Europe. The experience concludes with a look at their new lives in Australia and a memorial wall.