A member of the board who supervises the US Holocaust Memorial Museum wrote a sizzling letter to the other board members who convicted the silence of the institution after the recent fired in President Trump and the run -up to the Holocaust, because he warned about the dangers of not pronouncing.
At the end of April, Mr. Trump A number of board members fired Appointed by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., including Doug Emhoff, the husband of former vice -president Kamala Harris, as well as other former high administration officials.
The dismissals were criticized on a large scale as an attempt to politicize an organization that focuses on training the world about one of the worst atrocities in history. But at the time the museum’s statement did not report the termination and emphasized an eagerness instead to collaborate with the Trump government.
Kevin Abel, who was appointed by Mr Biden to the museum’s board in 2023, wrote in his letter on Friday that Mr. Trump’s “campaign” had met the disturbing “public silence” by the museum.
Mr. Abel wrote that although it was ‘understandable’ that museum leaders might be afraid to speak out with the risk of losing financing, it was vital to do this.
“At the moment of rising threats and a dazzling atmosphere of hatred, it is increasingly necessary that the Holocaust Memorial Museum of the United States, the only institution that can evoke the attack of the Council of his Council for what it is, did not chose to remain silent,” that he had not played, “wrote the Muse exhibition.”
The message led to a flurry of answers on Friday morning from fellow board members in a large e -mail chain.
Mr Abel wrote in his first letter to other board members: “The dissonant message cannot be lost, but when a Holocaust -Museum is silent in the aftermath of deeds of retribution and messages from hatred that arise from an administration that has systematically torn the structure of the protection and standards of our society and not a signal in the promotion of the enthusiasm.”
He continued: “The Holocaust teaches us that by using fear of buying silence, the Nazis were able to insulate, demonize and then kill millions of Jews step by step.”
Mr. Abel told the New York Times in an e -mail that he stayed on the board and intended to stay unless his correspondence led to him being pushed. He further refused comments.
A representative of the museum did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
In the e-mail chain, Daniel Huff, who appointed Mr Trump in 2020 in 2020 in the board of directors, objected to Mr Abel’s invocation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an anti-Nazi-Dissident. Mr. Abel had quoted his famous line: “Not to speak is to speak. Not acting is to act.”
“Everyone quotes Bonhoeffer,” Mr. Huff wrote. “OK, if someone here publicly spoke when Biden broke the seal by Trump -instructed from boards and Massa in 2021 (eg Paul Packer of the American Heritage Commission), send me proof and I will personally call the White House PPO and ask that you are being restored. That is a bonafide offer.”
In 2021 a spokesperson for the museum Introduced to CNN that the removal of council members would be unprecedented by a new administration.
Another answer to Mr Abel came from Kimberly Marteau Emerson, who wrote that she was one of the 13 members who was fired at the end of last month. She said that she too “was deeply disappointed by the sounding silence of the museum, both public and internally.”
Mrs. Emerson wrote that she had often thought about Thomas Mann, whom she described as “the German intellectual criticism of the Nazi regime led him from Germany from Germany in 1933.”
“In particular, I considered his speech from 1943 on BBC, where he said:” Tolerance becomes a crime when he is applied to evil, “she wrote.” Mann challenges us not to consider silence as safety, but as a moral risk. Silence is self -censorship framed as self -protection. But how do you draw the boundary between self -protection and moral abdication? “
The chain of e -mails led Stuart E. Eizenstat, the chairman of the board, to weigh.
“We are all appointed by the president and can be removed by the president,” he wrote, and added: “If this can be communication productive and may have unintended consequences that the museum can harm.”
- Advertisement -
