The Sydney Jewish Museum is working to preserve flowers, notes and other items left at a memorial for the Dec. 14 terrorist attack during a Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach that killed 15 people and wounded more than 40.
The museum, located in Sydney’s Darlinghurst neighborhood and founded more than 30 years ago to commemorate victims of the Holocaust, has already collected and catalogued more than 1,500 objects from the spontaneous memorial that formed near Bondi Pavilion in the days after the attack. The collection will be used in a future memorial exhibition on the tragedy.
The museum stated that the memorial tributes highlight “all the ways people have shared their grief and solidarity.” Among the items preserved are candles, cards, soft toys, painted stones and textiles, as well as surf lifesaving boards used by first responders as stretchers to carry victims from the scene.
In February, museum staff met with members of the Bondi Surf Lifesaving Club who responded to the attack.
“During the Bondi Beach attack in December last year, they turned their iconic red-and-yellow rescue boards into lifelines,” the museum wrote of the club. “As first responders, they provided first aid to victims and crucial support to paramedics.”
Ten of those boards, along with a spinal board used during the rescue efforts, have been donated to the museum’s collection.
Volunteers are also helping artist Nina Sanadze preserve roughly three tons of fresh flowers left at the memorial.
“The whole community is participating in this meaningful effort of preservation, remembrance and community-building,” the museum stated. Sanadze has been commissioned to create an exhibition that will transform the fragile tributes into a permanent work of remembrance.
The museum has also launched a digital archive called “Remembering Bondi,” inviting the public to upload memories, reflections, photographs and messages connected to the attack.
The Sydney Jewish Museum is currently closed during a major redevelopment project intended to transform the institution into a “state-of-the-art museum celebrating Jewish life and history while continuing to educate about the Holocaust and promote tolerance.” The renovation is expected to be completed in early 2027.
