Preservation of Auschwitz and The Holocaust.

[Jae Onasi]

The Germans in the '30's and '40's were some of the most highly educated, cultured people. The people who planned and carried out the holocaust had college degrees. They did their killing during the day and then went to symphonies in the evening. They were not unfamiliar with things like the Spanish Inquisition and other major events of crimes against humanity. If anything, they should have been even more cognizant of it after what they went through in WW I. For the Germans it wasn't an education issue, it was a power/political issue, absolute control of media, coupled with an extraordinarily gifted and utterly insane dictator. I think more often than not that's the case in most countries. It was the case in Stalin's Soviet Union, it was the case in Mao's China, both countries that had an intelligentsia at the time of their purges. Lack of education just makes it easier to control people, but lack of education is not a prerequisite for a holocaust to occur.

 

As a corollary, maintaining a holocaust museum, while important to historical understanding, is unlikely to prevent the perfect storm of events, politics and charismatic dictators that allow the environment in which a holocaust can fester. The people who are responsible for a holocaust aren't going to care about the museum, if they ever visit it in the first place.

[jawathehutt]

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That there is a picture taken inside the gas chamber at dachau. I'd imagine at least a few people wtf'd when they first saw it. I for one would probably do that. The picture conveys no emotion until you find out what it is. It still conveys almost no emotion when its description is given when compared to being in that room in person, the feeling of being in a room where thousands were killed for no reason can not be described with simple words and pictures.

[GarfieldJL]

It should be preserved because the physical evidence of this attrocity must remain to prove that this had happened because there are a lot of people that are trying to deny that it even happened, and this is one of the things that prove that it did.

[Jae Onasi]

That there is a picture taken inside the gas chamber at dachau. I'd imagine at least a few people wtf'd when they first saw it. I for one would probably do that. The picture conveys no emotion until you find out what it is. It still conveys almost no emotion when its description is given when compared to being in that room in person, the feeling of being in a room where thousands were killed for no reason can not be described with simple words and pictures.

 

There's a scene in the movie Schindler's List, which I highly recommend to everyone, where Jews are herded into a room very much like that one. There's tremendous tension as you expect gas to come out of the ceiling, when suddenly water sprays out of shower heads. You could hear the entire theater breathe this huge sigh of relief. Your favorite Qui-Gon actor, Liam Neeson, plays the main character.