Holocaust Museum Reddit
There’s already a museum in Detroit dedicated to slavery (and many more throughout the country), and I’d rather they continue their fundraising efforts for something that actually makes sense, as opposed to trying to build a holocaust museum reddit. The first concentration camps opened in 1933, nine years before the fucking Holocaust even began.
The Final Solution
When Hitler decided to invade the Soviet Union, he also gave Heinrich Himmler full authority to implement what became known as the “Final Solution.” This involved the total destruction of European Jewry.
The Final Solution was a series of policies that led to the death of six million Jews in Europe. These included ghettoization, starvation, disease, random acts of terror, and mass gassings and shootings.
During this time, the Nazis created killing centers such as Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. These sites were surrounded by fences and barbed wire, and they held thousands of people at a time. They were used to kill people by using Zyklon B gas.
The murders at these camps started out slow. But then they accelerated. Aron Gelberd, who survived the Holocaust, writes that during his 19 days in Treblinka, he saw three to four train transports arrive each day at the camp. This increased in intensity as the war neared its end.
The First Concentration Camps
The first concentration camps were installed after the Nazi takeover in early 1933 and were used for political repression. They were run by SA storm troopers and the police under a decree on “protective custody” (Schutzhaft), which gave them the power to detain anyone without trial for an indefinite period of time. The camps were far harsher and more brutal than prisons, and prisoners often died from disease. In addition to forced labor, the SS performed medical experiments on prisoners that resulted in deformities and even death.
The camp system grew into an important tool of Nazi rule as it expanded into occupied territories. It was based on the Nazi philosophy of divide and rule, in which a group would be isolated in order to control them from within. Inmates were marked with colored badges that indicated their status—red for communists and other political opponents, green for common criminals, purple for Jehovah’s Witnesses, pink for homosexual men, black for Gypsies and Sinti, and yellow for Jews.
Slavery and the Underground Railroad
During the period of American history before the Civil War, a network of people helped fugitive slaves escape to freedom. This clandestine system was known as the Underground Railroad (although it was not literally “underground” and did not operate on rail lines) and involved people of both African American and white descent. Notable participants included John Fairfield, who rejected his family’s plantation to help fugitives, and Harriet Tubman, who made 19 trips into the South and led many to Northern free states and Canada.
The Underground Railroad was named after the way it operated, with fugitives stopping at homes and barns that served as stations along the route. The stationmasters provided food, shelter and safety while a fugitive sent messages to the next stop. These stations were run by abolitionists and others who had a strong drive to end slavery, often risking their own lives in the process. This fueled the abolitionist movement and made the Underground Railroad a powerful symbol of resistance.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Located among the other national monuments to freedom on the National Mall, the Museum inspires citizens and leaders around the world to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. In addition to the exhibitions, the Museum offers a variety of programs and resources.
The Museum’s first permanent installation, Remember the Children: Daniel’s Story, personalizes the history of the Holocaust and encourages visitors to identify with victims. It also shows the flip side of humanity, highlighting risks ordinary people took to help the persecuted. This interactive exhibition with recreated environments is designed for children eight years and older, accompanied by adults.
Allow several hours to fully explore the permanent collection. There is also a series of rotating exhibitions that zoom in on specific items and stories within the Holocaust as well as atrocities throughout the globe. The Museum also provides a wealth of online resources for research and teaching. In addition, its Committee on Conscience works to raise awareness and alert the national conscience about contemporary acts or threats of genocide and related crimes against humanity.