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Topics: Human rights violations

Exhibitions

Dimensions in Testimony

Fridays and Saturdays at 1:15 p.m. (English) and 2:15 p.m. (French).
Times are subject to change.

Interact with two Holocaust survivors using innovative technology that allows you to ask questions and get real‐time responses. Now and into the future, museum visitors, including students, will be able to converse with these eyewitnesses to history.

Exhibition details

A small group of people sitting on wooden benches in a theatre face a screen showing an older woman seated in a chair. A man in a yellow shirt is standing to the right of the screen holding a microphone.

Reclaiming Power and Place

May 3, 2025 - April 5, 2030

Discover how two local Indigenous artists/matriarchs respond to the need for justice by creating awareness through art and action.

Exhibition details

Six red dresses and a white dress in the middle are suspended on wooden clothes hangers in front of a backdrop. A white star glows at the location of the heart on the central white dress. The backdrop features patterns on a birchbark texture. Some of the patterns are illuminated from behind to create glowing star-like features on the panels.

Love in a Dangerous Time: Canada’s LGBT Purge

January 31, 2025 to early 2026

From the 1950s to the 1990s, the Government of Canada systematically investigated, harassed and fired 2SLGBTQI+ members of the Canadian Armed Forces, the RCMP and the federal public service destroying careers, ruining lives and inflicting psychological damage on the community.

Exhibition details

A large group of protestors march through a city while two uniformed RCMP officers keep watch. In this black-and-white image, the protestors' signs and banners call for an end to discriminatory practices against members of the 2SLGBTQI+ community.

Stories

We are Roma

By Gina Csanyi-Robah with Shayna Plaut, Ph. D.

This is our story of activism against injustice, racism and discrimination.

A painting of the Romani flag, which is blue on top, green on the bottom and has a red chakra that looks like a wagon wheel in the centre.

Information Disorder in Times of Conflict

By Saranaz Barforoush, Ph. D. and Shayna Plaut, Ph. D.

The distortion of facts doesn’t just blur the truth — it shapes how the world sees a conflict, downplaying real suffering and making it easier to see others as “the enemy.” Disinformation is a direct threat to human rights. We see examples of this weapon of war taking a toll in conflicts today.

A person wearing a dark blue helmet marked with the word “PRESS” points from a balcony window high above a road, towards a pillar of smoke following an explosion.

Persecution of queer Canadian soldiers in wartime

By Sarah Worthman

Modern anti‐2SLGBTQI+ hate echoes the myths and prejudices of the past, threatening to erase queer soldiers’ stories again.

A man stands in dark shadows in a stark stone cell, gazing upward at bright sunlight streaming in through a barred window.

“My future children will never get to experience the home I knew”

By Damhat Zagros

A first person’s reflection on being forced from home and wrestling with what that means for him and for future generations. The article provides evocative narrative as well as background on international law as it relates to refugees and internally displacement peoples and the intergenerational effects of trauma and displacement.

Human rights violations

Watercolour painting of a group of adults and children, their faces obscured, standing in a field. All the women’s heads are covered and most people are carrying backpacks and have things in their hands.

Gender‐based violence across Canada

By Julie S. Lalonde

Violence limits and threatens the lives of women in Canada every day. The legal system and communities can do more to support and defend targets of male violence.

Human rights violations

A digital collage with a large drawing of an umbrella overlaid with images of large overlapping hands. Below it, two hands (one black, one pink) reach up and away from a stylized road leading to a distant house partially overlaid with a pixelated, cloudy stain of red colour. In the background is an image of a forest of white tree trunks and a faint yellow sun.

Justice after genocide: Rwandan Canadian community activism

By Jeremy Maron

Explore how members of the Rwandan Canadian community mobilized to pursue justice, within Canada, for the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

Human rights violations

A group of people walking down a street with sign that reads “Commémoration du génocide contre les Tutsi du Rwanda. Avril-Juillet 1994. www.pagerwanda.ca”.

Canada, antisemitism and the Holocaust

By Jeremy Maron

Widespread antisemitism in Canada in the 1930s and 1940s kept the nation’s borders closed to Jews trying to escape the Holocaust.

Human rights violations

Black and white photo of three signs on a post, reading “Christians only,” “Jews not allowed” and “Danger.”

Covering the Holodomor: Memory Eternal

By Jeremy Maron

Explore the role of journalists and the media in hiding and revealing the story of the genocidal famine in Ukraine engineered by Josef Stalin.

A statue of a girl holding stalks of wheat.

Remembering the Srebrenica Genocide

By Jeremy Maron

Kerim Bajramovic and Aida Šehović are both Bosniaks touched by the Srebrenica Genocide in different ways. Their perspectives offer distinct personal lenses through which we can learn about Srebrenica and its legacy.

Human rights violations

Two uniformed soldiers sit on a large vehicle, overlooking a densely packed crowd of people that stretches into the distance.

Us vs. Them: The process of othering

By Clint Curle

Explore the relationship between othering, human rights violations and the process of genocide through the lenses of the Holocaust and the Rohingya genocide.

A group of men building a stone wall across a city street

What led to the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda?

By Jeremy Maron

Learn how division, dehumanization and incitement of hatred set the stage for genocide.

Human rights violations

A large crowd of people of all ages carrying food and belongings walk toward the camera on a long dirt road through a bright green landscape of grass and bushes. The road and the crowd extend far into the distance.

Rohingya women call for justice

By Paula Kelly

A group of Rohingya women and men carry young children and belongings as they walk in a line over an earthen dike over a stretch of water.

Canada’s Indian residential schools: Childhood denied

A story about Indian residential schools and their legacy

Human rights violations

A group of boys in pyjamas kneel on single beds, heads bowed and hands clasped as if in prayer. A woman stands in the room, her hands clasped in the same way.

The story of Black slavery in Canadian history

By Steve McCullough and Matthew McRae

Canada celebrates being a destination for Americans who escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad. But slavery was also part of Canada’s history for more than 200 years.

Human rights violations

Rusted iron manacles hang on hooks on a plain white wall.

Armin Wegner: Witness to the Armenian Genocide

What does it mean to stand up for human rights? Read the story of a medic who risked his own safety to document the evidence of atrocity.

Human rights violations

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“A cauldron of hell”: The story of Canada’s Hong Kong veterans

By Matthew McRae

On December 8, 1941, the Japanese army launched an attack on the then‐British colony of Hong Kong, located in Southern China.

Human rights violations

Three older men in Canadian Legion uniforms sit beside each other. They are all wearing Remembrance Day poppies on their uniforms.

A Yiddish poem from the Holocaust

A single poem reminds us that even in the midst of atrocity, human dignity persists.

Human rights violations

A yellowed paper with a handwritten text in Yiddish. The piece of paper is flat but was folded previously as old fold marks are obvious.

Resource guides

Rohingya

We invite you to explore this guide as a starting point in learning more about the Rohingya people.

Explore resource guide

Human rights violations

A museum gallery featuring photographs projected onto large screens with seating in the middle of the room.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQI+ People

In this guide, you will find links to resources related to the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQI+ people in Canada and the United States.

Explore resource guide

5 red dresses of different sizes and designs are displayed on mannequins.

Talking to Kids about the Israeli‐Palestinian Conflict

In this guide you will find links to resources that can help when talking with children and youth about the current and ongoing Israeli‐Palestinian conflict.

Explore resource guide

The covers of seven books in English and in French.

Canada’s residential schools

In this guide, you will find links to resources related to the residential school system and the stories of children who were taken from their families and sent to residential schools.

Explore resource guide

Human rights violations

A Museum exhibit showing a black-and-white photo of children sitting in rows at school desks. Two desks, similar to those in the photo sit in the centre of the exhibit. A headline on a text panel reads “Childhood Denied.”