To the Editor:
Edward Norden’s article, “Yes and No to the Holocaust Museums” [August], is fair and sensitive. I was fortunate to have visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., the day it opened, before any media hype could influence me. I saw it at the same time as Bill Clinton, Lech Walesa of Poland, Chaim Herzog of Israel, and a dozen other world leaders. I can tell you that they went through the museum in a sober and somber manner. The architecture, the exhibits, and the sheer professionalism of the place are all deeply impressive. This museum is a testament to the survivors and the professional staff that built it. . . . On my visit, I followed a Mormon family consisting of a father, mother, and six children, and they went through the museum with respect and awe. This is a museum for all Americans: it is not a Jewish museum, it is an American museum, fulfilling America’s highest aspirations and ideals. And I say this as a child of survivors, who lost 25 members of my family, including my two precious little sisters, to Ukrainian policemen and SS Einsatzgruppen. On this issue Henry Kissinger is wrong. The Holocaust Memorial Museum will not reignite anti-Semitism; . . . in fact, it will reduce anti-Semitism by educating the world, and not just Americans, to be more tolerant of differences. In short, in the words of the time-honored joke—this museum is good for the Jews!
Jack Nusan Porter
Newton Highlands, Massachusetts
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To the Editor:
Thank you for Edward Norden’s article, which dealt, in part, with the newly opened U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. I was glad to see Mr. Norden’s rather favorable review of this museum, but think that his mark of “B+” is too low for so vast an exhibit of the anti-Semitic inhumanity epitomized by the Holocaust. . . . The museum traces chronologically the early acts of the Nazis such as the burning of the Reichstag, Kristallnacht, etc., and then proceeds to the Warsaw Ghetto, forced labor, and the systematic murder of the Jews. What is particularly welcome is the documentation (narrative and pictorial) of the Nazi accomplices among the Croats, Estonians, and Ukrainians. The recounting of the gruesome indecencies perpetrated specifically against women is particularly shocking. What also stands out in my mind is the frankness with which the museum deals with the fact that the U.S. could have curbed the number of dead innocents but did not; I am thinking particularly of the photograph in which the crematoria are visible that was taken by U.S. bombers who destroyed oil refineries within several miles of Auschwitz but left the crematoria and rail lines leading into the death camp untouched.
I think that this memorial will help educate those Americans who are sadly ignorant of these facts, and will help to refute the lies of the Holocaust deniers. Seeing this exhibit made me, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, even more proud to be a U.S. citizen. . . .
Alexander V. Tsesis
Chicago, Illinois
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To the Editor:
Edward Norden deserves commendation for his profound analysis of the Holocaust museums in the U.S. and how they may affect the future of the Jewish community. He generously praises the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., especially when compared with Beit Hashoah (the Museum of Tolerance) in Los Angeles—a museum that was labeled “grotesque” by the New Republic. . . .
I am grateful to Mr. Norden for reporting on a little-known event sponsored by Beit Hashoah, namely, the showing of a “powerful” film on Bosnian Muslims terrorized by Serbs. At a reception that followed, the film’s producer, Arthur Kent, was quoted as saying that the tragedy in Bosnia is “an insult to the memory of those who died in the Holocaust.” (How does he know? Did he ask those who died?) . . . Kent’s preposterous statement is indicative of a widespread phenomenon in the Jewish community of misusing the Nazi Holocaust as a metaphor for the tragedy in the Balkans. This comparison is not only improper but clearly misleading, and it negates the purpose of the newly-built museums of presenting the Holocaust as a uniquely Jewish event in history.
The circumstances of the ethnic fighting in the disintegrated Yugoslavia are fundamentally different from the systematic extermination of the Jewish people by Nazi Germany. What we have in Bosnia and Croatia is a civil war among combatants using the most cruel means of warfare that are a legacy of the region’s history. . . .
As a Holocaust survivor, I am very much concerned about a new common agenda adopted recently by leaders of major American Jewish organizations, namely, a forceful campaign for our government to intervene in the Balkan civil war. . . . These organizations . . . have the word “Jewish” in their names. Some of them are defense organizations, others have an outstanding tradition of charitable activities in Jewish communities here and abroad. Yet the new focus is on non-Jewish issues. Have their charters been amended to universalize their work? Do they mean to say that all Jewish problems in America have been solved? Are the problems facing jews in the former Soviet Union no longer important? How did our leadership get its mandate to embark on a new agenda? . . .
Alfred Lipson
Bayside, New York
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To the Editor:
Edward Norden heard the same MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour that I did, that of December 3, 1992. The “black-activist” guest he mentions was Congresswoman Barbara-Rose Collins (D.-Mich.). She appeared with two Senators, all discussing the food crisis in Somalia and the lawlessness of native thugs. It was not enough, she said, for the U.S. to deliver food and medical supplies to the Somali population. No indeed, that was only part of what was needed. She favored U.S. military intervention. As Mr. Norden writes, she stated that the reason the U.S. entered World War II was to save the Jews of Europe. . . . I was stunned by her outrageous ignorance of history. There was no correction by any participant, including Jim Lehrer. . . .
Eugene W. Feldman
Lewistown, Pennsylvania
