Image: The exterior of the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre (Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre)
The museum called the author’s racism “undeniable and indelible”, and detailed its efforts to address Dahl’s views
The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre has acknowledged and condemned the late author’s antisemitism.
In a statement on its website, the museum in Buckinghamshire said Dahl’s racism was “undeniable and indelible”, adding “what we hope can also endure is the potential of Dahl’s creative legacy to do some good.”
The museum, which is a charity, said it “condemns all racism directed at any group or individual”, and backed an apology made in 2020 by the Dahl family and Roald Dahl Story Company for Dahl’s antisemitic views, some of which were published in an interview with The New Statesman in 1983.
It said it has been engaged with organisations within the Jewish community since 2021, including the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, the Community Security Trust, and the Antisemitism Policy Trust.
The museum has undertaken training for its staff and trustees from the Antisemitism Policy Trust.
It has developed resources for UK primary schools at Key Stage 2 to explore the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). The resources, it said, are “part of addressing the legacy of Roald Dahl’s racism towards Jewish people”.
The resources, set to be published this autumn, have been funded by donations from a Dahl family trust established to combat antisemitism and racism.
They will explore the themes of the Rights of the Child through the characters and incidents in Roald Dahl stories.
The museum said it has not produced resources directly about antisemitism because “we do not think we are the right organisation to try and deliver education directly about antisemitism on our own.”
Instead, the charity’s educational resources will “[seek] to combat prejudice by championing universal children’s rights,” it said.
