Dubai museum opens Holocaust gallery beside Islamic and Emirati history displays

A privately owned museum in Dubai has placed a Holocaust gallery beside its displays on Islamic, Emirati and Palestinian history, a combination that is unusual in the Arab world. The Crossroads of Civilizations Museum, founded by Ahmed Obaid Al Mansoori, a former member of the UAE Federal National Council, presents the Holocaust alongside the other histories it documents. The institution is designed so that visitors move from one history to another within the same building.

The Holocaust gallery opened in May 2021, less than a year after the United Arab Emirates and Israel normalized relations. The official opening took place on May 26, 2021, and was attended by the Israeli and German ambassadors. Al Mansoori has said the gallery is permanent, and some visitors have criticized the decision to include it. The gallery was built with contributions from Arab, Jewish and Christian collaborators, a point the founder has emphasized in describing how the project came together.

Among the exhibits is a life-size image of a boy from the Warsaw Ghetto, based on a well-known photograph from the ghetto. The gallery also highlights Muslims who sheltered Jews during the Nazi period, including Egyptian physician Mohammed Helmy, who worked in Berlin. These accounts are presented as part of the gallery's effort to show that the history of the Holocaust includes rescuers from many backgrounds, not only its victims and perpetrators.

Al Mansoori began collecting artifacts in 1989. He kept the collection in his home as a private museum in 2006, and opened it to the public in 2014 in a Dubai building. He said the idea was shaped by a visit in the 1990s to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, which left a lasting impression on him. He also described a change in his own view of antisemitism in the United States after antisemitic imagery surfaced during unrest there, a development that, in his account, made the subject feel more immediate to him.

The museum also displays Israeli and Palestinian maps side by side, a choice that places two competing national narratives in the same space. In August 2020, rabbis visited the museum, and Muslim, Jewish and Christian guests prayed together on site. Those moments, according to the founder, reflect the purpose he has tried to give the institution: a space where different histories are presented in the same building and where visitors can encounter them together rather than apart.

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Connor Quincy

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Connor Quincy covers public affairs, politics, business, culture and daily news for Core Memo. The role focuses on verification, context, and clear explanations for readers.

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