10 Things I Learned from the Holocaust Memorial Museum

[Plaid Adder]

For any of you who live in the DC area, I wanted to put in a plug for the temporary exhibit at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race." It examines one of the lesser-known aspects of the Nazi plan for world domination: the 'strengthening' of the German people via the elimination of the disabled and the mentally ill. This was justified through a combination of strategies, including a propaganda campaign representing the disabled as an unjustifiable financial burden on both the state and individual people. That was the part of it that got me the most, because it is so much like the arguments the neocons make against things like social security, welfare, and so on.

My extended play commentary on the exhibit is here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/plaidder/142026.html

Most of this stuff was not new information for me. All the same, by the time I was done going through the exhibit, I wanted to throw up. There is a book at the end of the exhibit that you can write in, which asks the question, "What do you think the main point of the exhibit is?" I quit writing after a paragraph because there were people in line behind me. Here on cyberspace, no one can make you stop writing, so here are my

Top 10 Things I Learned About Living Under a Totalitarian Fascist Regime

10. Trusting your government makes it easier for that government to fuck you over.

9. Governments lie. They just flat-out lie, especially about things that are so bad they would cause riots if they were generally known.

8. Therefore, your government is probably worse than you think it is.

7. Disobedience is dangerous in the short term, but it can also protect you.

6. Compliance is less dangerous in the short term, but in the long term it will not protect you.

5. Anything can be justified.

4. Anyone can disappear.

3. Fascism is powered by the selfishness, cowardice, and laziness of the individual constitutents.

2. Allowing your leader to disregard the laws of your country, even when those laws themselves are terrible, is a really, really BAD idea.

1. Human life is intrinsically valuable. Human beings are not required to justify their existence in terms of utility, economic or intellectual productivity, or service to the nation. A society that has forgotten this has launched itself on a swift spiral down into hell.

Happy @#$! new year,

The Plaid Adder

[JDPriestly]

1. Thanks. Lessons we all need to remember this New Year's.

[lvx35]

2. Cool statements. I agree.

If there's one thing we need to do more, its to explore the anatomy of fascism. I'm glad to hear you posting about the Nazi eradication of the disabled. The way some people talk about the holocaust, you'd think it was just against 6 million jews...but this is part of the larger picture of theory and justification that actually lead to 11 million people killed, including jews, homosexuals, communists and disabled. I think you have look at the whole picture, the whole framework of justification and philosphy to see how it got to the point that it got to.

[MnFats]

3. I thought I was prepared to visit the Holocaust Memorial Museum...

i figured I'd read more history than most and talked with survivors...

it was a shocking, wrenching, heart-rending experience.


that said, GO SEE IT!
It is astonishing.

[Hawkeye-X]

16. My dad is a second generation of a Holocaust survivor

My dad was born in Hamburg, Germany, 2 years after WWII ended in a displaced camp, where my grandfather and my grandmother survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belson. He went to the Holocaust museum a few years ago, and could not simply finish the tour, as it affected him greatly.

I got through it fine, and it was a very interesting learning experience. I could understand why my dad didn't finish the tour.

My grandfather, on his last year of his life, went back to Europe in 1999 for the first time since 1949 accompanied by my parents and my sister, where he found his father's grave and ordered a headstone for it in a Jewish cemetery in the Czech Republic. He also met his cousin there who he hasn't seen in over 50 years. He was 40 years old when he survived the Holocaust, and passed away peacfully at the age of 92.

He also recorded his story in the Shoah, and I'm in it about my reflections with my grandfather.

Hawkeye-X

[MnFats]

18. several survivors on the tour I was on..

...
one fellow I got to talking with explained that his wife could not go. She refused and wouldn't talk of it. he explained, that's how some dealt with it. No circumstances could get her there.
but now his wife had been dead for two years and he wanted to go. JCC group from MPLS.
the most heart-rending moment:
there is a mock warehouse scene filled with actual shoes from Auschwitz victims.
I found him standing there, mute, deep in thought.
I put my hand on his shoulder, just to say 'you okay?"
He looked at me, then said "My parents' shoes could be in there."
there was nothing good to say so I just stood there with him for a time with my hand on his shoulder.
finally he patted my hand and we walked on.

[FreedomAngel82]

23. Aw

I remember being in DC and seeing something with the Holocaust. I can't remember if it was a whole tour of it or what. I just remember seeing Anne Frank's part of the tour. It was so sad and her story always touched me and I remember promising myself I would do what I could for that to not happen to my country. :( You must try to find Elie Wiesel's book "Night." He's a holocaust survivor and nobel peace prize winner and he wrote the book on his experience in the Nazi camp(s).

[Lex]

4. Wise, wise words again from The Plaid Adder.

Thank you for your excellent observations. It's always worth reading what you've been ruminating about.

[sandnsea]

5. Worth repeating

"Human beings are not required to justify their existence in terms of utility, economic or intellectual productivity, or service to the nation."

Happy New Year to you too, and thanks for the most excellent thoughts to begin 2006.

[shenmue]

6. I don't live near DC...

but there is a Holocaust Museum in Tampa, and it is a very moving experience.

I agree with all of your points.

[leftchick]

7. Thank You. I needed this after a visit with my faux addled Mother

I said I was afraid of my government and asked if she was. She said of course not she is afraid of all of the people trying to enter the US and KILL US!

Faux news mission accomplished. :(

[MissWaverly]

8. I recently watched Ben Ferencz on C-Span

He was the chief prosecutor for the Nuremeberg trials, he said that the German's defense
for their killing of thousands of innocent people was self-defense. They knew that their
neighboring nations posed a threat and the safest thing was to do a pre-emptive strike against them to eliminate it, they excused the killings of thousands of innocent people by saying they were eliminating potential collaborators who would side with the enemy. They also preached that allied flyers were not to be treated humanely as prisoners. They
were to be beaten to death because they were enemies of the state. (They did not
have the term enemy combatants back then).

[Surya Gayatri]

9. Beautifully humanist post

for this New Year's Eve. May more and more of our countrymen wake up to this alarming truth before its too late. SG

[degreesofgray]

10. I was in Essen, Germany

seven summers ago and took a tour of the Krupps family mansion, which is now a company museum. Among the many artifacts and exhibits is a timeline. Amazingly enough, no one in the Krupps family or company did anything from 1932 to 1945. I thought hmmm, that's odd, until I was across town at another exhibit and saw an exhibit on Nazi Germany and the holocaust and learned exactly what Krupps was up to during that time. Fascist governments require not just citizen compliance, but corporate collaboration as well.

(Great list btw!)

[Plaid Adder]

14. That's amazing.

"Oh, they were all just in Bermuda during that time..."

Puts me in mind of the Duke Tobacco Museum.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[SPKrazy]

25. Fascism is corporatism!

That's really the structure and function of fascism

corporate control of government

[NJCher]

11. That took guts

Not only to go to the museum, but to do the mental processing that resulted in your post.

I'm afraid to go to these types of museums. I don't think I can control myself.


Cher

[TallahasseeGrannie]

13. I have not yet

been able to handle that museum.

What a great OP, however.

[IndyOp]

12. Govts lie esp about things *they think* so bad *they think* people riot

I am thinking a lot lately about information 'withheld' from the 'public' - by whom, and why. Of course, some information is withheld when the actors realize what they are doing is wrong and they don't want it scrutinized. More frequently - and of more concern - is when 'good people' withhold information because they believe themselves to be wiser than the 'public' --

According to Mark Crispin Miller - The Nation and Mother Jones won't report on the theft of Election 2004 because they believe that it would be 'too disruptive' to the nation - maybe people just wouldn't vote anymore? maybe people would riot?

According to Waldron & Hartmann, RFK participated in covering up JFK's assassination because he believed that the assassination was committed by Cuban actors who were acting to prevent the assassination of Castro (which RFK was plotting with a member of Castro's government). RFK (and advisors?) believed that if the American people believed that Cuba was responsible for the assassination of JFK they would insist on revenge - Am would 'hit' Cuba and Russia would 'hit' Am - nuclear annihilation. As it turns out, it was the mafia who killed JFK as revenge for RFK's prosecution of members of the mafia.

Virtually all groups in the grips of 'groupthink' make decisions believing that they are more wise, more moral that those who are not in the group --> that they are doing the right thing, the people will realize it eventually.

Ben Ferencz, Nuremburg lawyer, says that the Nazis killed Jews in self-defense (they believed they were doing right):

General Taylor assigned me to be Chief Prosecutor in what was known as the Einsatzgruppen case. The defendants were leaders of SS units that followed advancing German troops into occupied Poland and the Soviet Union. Their mission was to kill, without pity or remorse, every Jewish man, woman and child they could lay their hands on. Gypsies and any other perceived threats to the Reich were to suffer the same fate. According to their secret reports, these extermination squads, totaling about 3000 men, deliberately massacred over a million innocent people. The victims were killed simply because they did not share the race, religion or ideology of their executioners.

To prevent acts of genocidal barbarism, one must understand the mentality and reasoning of the murderers. The twenty-two defendants in the Einsatzgruppen case were selected on the basis of high rank and education. Many held doctor degrees -- six were SS Generals. The principle defendant, General Dr. Otto Ohlendorf, patiently explained why his unit had killed about 90,000 Jews. Killing all Jews and Gypsies was necessary, said Ohlendorf. as a matter of self-defense.

According to Ohlendorf, it was known that the Soviets planned total war against Germany. A German preemptive strike was better than waiting to be attacked. It was also known, said Ohlendorf, that Jews supported the Bolsheviks - therefore all Jews had to be eliminated. But why did he, the father of five children, kill the little babes -- thousands of them? The bland reply was that if the children learned that their parents had been eliminated, they would grow up to be enemies of Germany. Long range security was the goal. He lacked facts sufficient to challenge Hitler's conclusions. It was all very logical -- according to General Dr. Ohlendorf.

< http://www.benferencz.org/ >

[Sabriel]

29. Words from the past for today:

"The bland reply was that if the children learned that their parents had been eliminated, they would grow up to be enemies of Germany."

Just substitute "U.S." for Germany, and Iraqis for Jews.

[n2doc]

30. or "liberals" for Jews

If/when it happens here, we will be the ones targeted. Our children too, unless they go the forced "re-education" route taken so many times in the past. Rush/Coulter/O'reilly are paving the way every day.

[Cleita]

15. Happy New Years to you plaiddy.

Another thing I would add to your list, is that there is no such thing as illegal people and to pass laws that make them illegal for just being who they are will lead to all the abuses of those former Nazi times.

[gulfcoastliberal]

17. Reminds me of the Anne Frank house/museum in Amsterdam

It's really powerful.

[madrchsod]

19. the war channel had the training films and other movies

about the killing of the "mentally defective" remember this was popular idea among the rich upper class in the united states before and after the war..

[Plaid Adder]

31. There is some stuff in the exhibit about eugenics in America.

It was equally disgusting. The idea was not specific to Nazi Germany; they just had greater latitude with which to pursue its more repellent implications.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[bonito]

20. #1

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. This is a must see in DC

Thanks for the post. I will NEVER forget what I learned when I went to the Holocaust Museum.

[earth mom]

22. The Government has already begun to trample on the disabled in the U.S.

All you have to do is look how the Bush Administration AND Congress aka "The Government" has supported the pharma giants in the cover up of how the pharma giants POISONED infants with mercury laden vaccinations, leaving far too many children with Autism! The pharma giants have done everything in their power to weasel out of finding a cause-because NO DOUBT they will be proven at fault-while the Bush administration AND Congress supports them! At this point, the pharma giants CAN NOT be sued! :grr:

We will never know the TRUTH about what REALLY happened to these children (because the truth is too costly for the pharma giants!) nor will these children have any sort of financial cushion to protect them when family members are no longer alive or able to care for them! No doubt most will be living in horrendous conditions in some sort of group home or more than likely homeless on the streets! :grr:

And some say the U.S. isn't already headed in the direction of Nazi Germany?! Yeah, right. Tell me another story or lie! :eyes: :grr:

[slipslidingaway]

24. K&R esp. for #1. n/t

[kath]

26. Plaid, was the OP what you wrote in the book at the exhibit?

If not, could you try to reconstruct it for us here?

Great post, by the way.

(I've been spamming this around a bit, but did you read the DailyKos diary from a week or two back titled "Slouching Toward Kristallnacht"? Relevant to what you wrote here, and VERY chilling. Also very educational, from a historical standpoint. I recommend that everyone read it.)

[tavalon]

27. I went there on Sunday, Sept 25th, 2005

The day after that little protest gathering (600,000 of my fellow patriots). I went by myself because I didn't care to talk to anyone while I was there. It was very moving and I wrote in one of the books at the end of the tour. I told people to be aware that fascism was happening again and this time here in the US.

[thecai]

28. Right ON!

I learned those ten things just from the two Bush administrations!

[peekaloo]

32. I spent 4 hours in that Museum one day. Skipped a work seminar to attend.

At one point I couldn't move, literally, because it's all so overwhelming. The worst part was a man and his son who were behind me as we entered that one hallway where the picture of the victims' scalps was mounted. At first I didn't quite realize what I was seeing, are those wigs? Then the kid behind me SCREAMED and started crying and it hit me. :-(

Thank you for your post.