Remembering
The initiator of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, with its focus on Holocaust memorial, put his money where his soulful, mournful memory was. He envisioned a commemorative edifice to human rights with an emphasis on the Holocaust exemplifying the most vile excesses of human degradation to instruct and to edify future generations so that the horrible calamity of genocide would not be forgotten.
Other nations of the world have famously erected their own memorials and museums devoted to the memory of the six million Jewish lives that were extinguished in an odiously-planned-and-executed state-run enterprise to rid the world of its European Jewish population. The German penchant for excruciating details and documentation ensured that there would be more than ample evidence of their unspeakable plans.
And it is that evidence, in the form of lists, plan outlines, written commands and orders, reports and invoices, timetables and schedules that now comprise the documentation available to demonstrate just how orderly and devoted a project the eradication of Jews represented to the Third Reich. In the coming world of Supermen exemplified by Aryan physical perfection there would be no room for sub-humans.
The Asper Foundation Human Rights and Holocaust Studies Program has been instrumental in bringing over nine thousand high school students from 115 Canadian cities to Washington, D.C. to visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, since 1997. Israel Asper, the founder of the program, and the initiator behind the enterprise that is resulting in Canada's own museum of human rights, felt it past time for Canada to have its own such museum.
The museum, currently under construction, is located in Winnipeg, Mr. Asper's home city. The federal government, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has designed the museum a federal institution, the first such institution to be located outside the National Capital Region. The ambitious enterprise is funded by the city, the province and the federal government, along with private subscription.
Canadian high school students who visit the American museum first studied the history of the Holocaust through an 18-hour educational program that concludes with the annual visit to the Washington museum. Within the museum are remnants of the physical structures that were familiar to the inmates of the death camps. Along with collections of personal objects that offer another facet of the atrocity.
Chambers containing cattle cars used to transport Jews to the death camps. The bare and comfortless wooden bunk beds from Auschwitz where Jewish men, women and children - one and a half million Jewish children perished in the Holocaust - were housed until they died of disease or starvation or were gassed. And mounds of shoes worn by the prisoners before they were murdered.
A profound experience for young people, to quietly observe the artefacts. And to connect them with the material they had read and discussed. It is past time that Canadians of all ages and interests have their own national memorial to attend, for the purpose of fully understanding how powerful a need it is to preserve human rights entitlements for everyone.
Other nations of the world have famously erected their own memorials and museums devoted to the memory of the six million Jewish lives that were extinguished in an odiously-planned-and-executed state-run enterprise to rid the world of its European Jewish population. The German penchant for excruciating details and documentation ensured that there would be more than ample evidence of their unspeakable plans.
And it is that evidence, in the form of lists, plan outlines, written commands and orders, reports and invoices, timetables and schedules that now comprise the documentation available to demonstrate just how orderly and devoted a project the eradication of Jews represented to the Third Reich. In the coming world of Supermen exemplified by Aryan physical perfection there would be no room for sub-humans.
The Asper Foundation Human Rights and Holocaust Studies Program has been instrumental in bringing over nine thousand high school students from 115 Canadian cities to Washington, D.C. to visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, since 1997. Israel Asper, the founder of the program, and the initiator behind the enterprise that is resulting in Canada's own museum of human rights, felt it past time for Canada to have its own such museum.
The museum, currently under construction, is located in Winnipeg, Mr. Asper's home city. The federal government, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has designed the museum a federal institution, the first such institution to be located outside the National Capital Region. The ambitious enterprise is funded by the city, the province and the federal government, along with private subscription.
Canadian high school students who visit the American museum first studied the history of the Holocaust through an 18-hour educational program that concludes with the annual visit to the Washington museum. Within the museum are remnants of the physical structures that were familiar to the inmates of the death camps. Along with collections of personal objects that offer another facet of the atrocity.
Chambers containing cattle cars used to transport Jews to the death camps. The bare and comfortless wooden bunk beds from Auschwitz where Jewish men, women and children - one and a half million Jewish children perished in the Holocaust - were housed until they died of disease or starvation or were gassed. And mounds of shoes worn by the prisoners before they were murdered.
A profound experience for young people, to quietly observe the artefacts. And to connect them with the material they had read and discussed. It is past time that Canadians of all ages and interests have their own national memorial to attend, for the purpose of fully understanding how powerful a need it is to preserve human rights entitlements for everyone.
Labels: Canada, Holocaust, Human Relations, United States
posted by Pieface @ 7:08 PM
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