One of the objects on display at the United States Holocaust Museum is a copper bowl used in the Treblinka concentration camp.  There is nothing aesthetically special about this bowl unless you consider its imperfections–the dents in the bowl or its rust orange color–to be unique.  There are many bowls that were used in the Treblinka concentration camp.  The question becomes what makes this bowl special, and why was it this bowl taken away from the camp?  One bowl can lead us to the bigger questions about what makes any object significant for display in a museum? Why is one object chosen over similar objects to represent history?

The question of what makes an object significant is central in the selection process for pieces that should be included in museum exhibits.  All objects have histories yet not all histories are significant.  Everyday objects that were used during a particular periods of time can have a significance placed on them by people.  These people can be scholars, museum curators, or even communities of people.  Objects, such as an everyday bowl, tend to not be significant as works of art.  Significance is gained when these objects are able to represent an event that is seen as historically significant. The object itself is therefore not significant but the period of time is.  The copper bowl is just a bowl but, because it was used by ordinary people in extraordinary situations, such as a concentration camps.

An ordinary object can also gain significance for its association with a famous or significant person (an artist, a musician, etc.). The desk where Thomas Jefferson drafted the “Declaration of Independence” and the top hat worn by Abraham Lincoln are both examples of everyday objects that are significant due to who had used them.

An object can be seen as significant by representing an idea, vision, or sound from a time period.  The significance is on the intangible not the physical object.  If an object gains its significance from a time period, what makes that object more significant than a similar object from the same period?  If significance is obtained by having been played or written by a particular person, is the object not displayed because of what it is but for who it represents? Well yes that would be correct, but an object may not have to be significant to be an artifact.  All objects have the ability to represent or convey a story which could be historically significant.

There are times when there are many similar objects that can be capable of conveying a similar message.  This causes those working with the objects to have to make a decision of which of these objects should be used to best convey the user’s message.  When museum curators have to make a conscious decision to select one of many objects the person is assigning a significance to that one object that the person believes the other pieces do not have.  The bowl from the Treblinka concentration camp is a good example of this. The selection of the bowl was a task that had a large amount of thought behind it when done.  The bowl’s condition and the message that was to be conveyed by the bowl was all considered when it was procured for use by the United States Holocaust Museum. Curators need to make sure that the bowl would be unique within the museum’s collection in some way.  The length of time the bowl is allowed to be displayed had to be taken into account.  The ability to display and maintain the bowl are factors for the museum curator as much as the uniqueness of the bowl.  There would be no benefit in having a unique bowl if the bowl would not be able to be displayed or would be too costly to maintain.

Objects are made important because of what, people believe, they represent. We see this with the selection of any object for a museum.  An object to be worthy of display must be seen as a significant representation of a person, place, or time.  The process of selecting a bowl for display in the United States Holocaust Museum is important, because the bowl chosen is seen to significantly represent the life of prisoners in the Treblinka concentration camp.  The placement of significance on an object is done by individuals and the ways a person places significance onto an object varies by what the object is to represent.  Objects gain significance by representing people, places, and time periods.  The copper bowl does all three, by representing prisoners in the Treblinka camp during World War II, and this is why the bowl is believed to be significant.