Over 150 scholars who teach about the Holocaust called on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to retract a previous statement disregarding migrant camps on the southern border as concentration camps.
The New York Review of Books reported the open letters says the “core of Holocaust education is to alert the public to dangerous developments that facilitate human rights violations and pain and suffering; pointing to similarities across time and space is essential for this task.”
“The Museum’s decision to completely reject drawing any possible analogies to the Holocaust, or to the events leading up to it, is fundamentally ahistorical,” the letter said.
“It has the potential to inflict severe damage on the Museum’s ability to continue its role as a credible, leading global institution dedicated to Holocaust memory, Holocaust education, and research in the field of Holocaust and genocide studies,” they write.
The scholars comments come after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in an Instagram live video that the U.S. “is running concentration camps on our southern border.”
While she didn’t mention the Holocaust specifically, she did call President Trump a “fascist” president.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez received widespread criticism for her characterization from Democrats and Republicans. Days later, the museum released a statement saying it “unequivocally rejects efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary.”
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and other representatives toured three migrant facilities Monday, where Rep. Norma Torres said she witnessed “inhumane conditions” that were “embarrassing” for the U.S.
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
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