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This statement saddens me. I'll preface this mini thread by saying that I have a degree in history and focused on 20th century European history, specifically WWII, including the events leading up to it. I did my senior paper on the uprising in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw -- 1/11
in 1943. I've visited Auschwitz and the US Holocaust museum. I've read numerous books on the Holocaust. This is not some attempt to tout my credentials (because I don't have any compared to the real Holocaust scholars) but just to say that I'm pretty aware of the history. 2/11
And the purpose of learning that history was not just to know what really happened or why and how it happened. It was also to learn the dangers of silence, acquiescence, and complicity. This was the message of my teachers, the authors I read, and the survivors I listened to. 3/11
Or at least this is what I understood as I walked through the 4th floor of the US Holocaust museum and read the information about how Nazis used propaganda, scapegoating, and fear to pursue their agenda. The entire floor was about the things that led to the Holocaust. 4/11
This message from the US Holocaust museum means that the 4th floor of the permanent exhibit wasn't designed to teach a lesson beyond "this is what happened in 1930's Germany." And that's extremely sad because it has so much power to teach so much more. 5/11
It also saddens me because I was at the US Holocaust museum the day a white supremacist decided to enter the building with a gun and killed a black security guard. There could be no more stark reminder that the hate that fueled the millions killed in the Holocaust lives on. 6/11
Whether intended or not, this statement is dismissive of the suffering currently being caused by our government. It says that all that matters is remembering the facts of the Holocaust, not it's lessons. The facts are important and absolutely matter. But so are the lessons. 7/11
I visited Auschwitz in September of 2007. It was a beautiful late summer day with blue skies and green everywhere, including the grounds where millions of people died. I walked those grounds in remembrance, humility, and sorrow. The experience will stay with me forever. 8/11
But part of that experience that stays with me was the groups of students who were there learning about that horrible history. That a place of death could be a place of hope because we could learn lessons a create a better world where "Never Again" resonated. 9/11
Maybe that's naive (well, I know it is) but that's what I felt that day. That's what I choose to believe each day of my life, no matter how much reality tries to kill that belief. That the US Holocaust museum is choosing to fight over an analogy rather than condemn -- 10/11
the concentration camps on our borders full of children, full of people seeking refuge from violence, is heartbreaking and feels like a betrayal of what I thought was one of the main purposes of the museum. This president will poison everything before it is done, I fear. 11/11
