Preserving Memory: Part Two

The second half of Edward T. Linenthal’s, Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum, illustrates the struggles of designing the permanent exhibit and the museum’s mission of raising awareness of genocide worldwide. Once again we see the same battle of “ownership” of the Holocaust memory among the Jewish sect. The same old arguments and differences arise over who should be portrayed in the permanent exhibition, and it is rather shocking to see how the Jewish members of the council try to discriminate against the “other” victims. It’s almost (or maybe it IS) hypocritical of the “other” victims’ treatment in the designing of the exhibition by the members of the council. Although the Jews were by far the largest group to suffer at the hands of the Nazis, it is still the same suffering and horrible fate that the Roms, the handicapped, and homosexuals faced and their deaths should hold the same value. The discussion over the inclusion of the Armenian genocide as a precursor to the Holocaust was quite illuminating as well. It was frustrating to read about how difficult the members of the council were who stressed that the Jewish story was the only story/most important story to tell in the exhibit and therefore vetoed any inclusion of non-Jewish history. It’s disheartening that Michael Berenbaum could not get more of the Armenian’s story of genocide into the exhibit besides the one quote from Hitler, although he fought hard for it. However, in the case of the Armenian genocide politics played a large role over the inclusion of it in the exhibit, not just the opinions of council members. All the same though, it is a shame that there story could not be included. Linenthal’s documentation of the warring debates over inclusion in the permanent exhibition shines a spotlight on the difficulties in commemorating a memory whose wounds are still fresh in the hearts and minds of men and women.

Despite the hardships that the museum faced in its development, Linenthal's conclusion brought the story back home with his example of the incident in Billings, Montana. Having never heard of this incident prior to this reading, it was inspiring to know that a community can come together in resistance to prevent such acts of violence and hate from spiraling out of control. This story is a great way to encompass this idea that commemorating Holocaust memory serves to do more than pay respect to those whose lives were lost, but also can propel people to actively prevent an "extreme situation" from occurring again.