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Destination museum: A conversation with barbara kirshenblatt-gimblett

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posted on 2022-08-25, 23:58 authored by Conal McCarthyConal McCarthy
What was the first museum you remember visiting?I was born in September 1942 during the war. My parents came from Poland. Three weeks after I was born, 6,500 Jews from my father’s hometown, Opatów (Apt, in Yiddish), 65% of the population, disappeared overnight. All but 500 were sent to the Treblinka death camp, and the rest to a forced labour camp. So I grew up in an immigrant neighbourhood in the immediate postwar years. I went through an ultra-Orthodox period (my parents were horrified). I became not only strictly kosher, but also I observed the Sabbath very strictly. That meant I could not ride, spend money, turn on the radio, write, tear paper . . . I could do almost nothing. Except . . . I could walk to the Royal Ontario Museum. . . . and I did. So this was before the era of helicopter parents. At the age of 10, 11, 12 years old, I would walk out of my house, through Queen’s Park, to the ROM, and that was my beloved childhood museum.

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Preferred citation

McCarthy, C. (2019). Destination museum: A conversation with barbara kirshenblatt-gimblett. Museum Worlds, 7(1), 71-81. https://doi.org/10.3167/armw.2019.070106

Journal title

Museum Worlds

Volume

7

Issue

1

Publication date

2019-07-01

Pagination

71-81

Publisher

Berghahn Books

Publication status

Published

ISSN

2049-6729

eISSN

2049-6737

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