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>> up next, the national world war ii museum hosts a panel discussion on holocaust denial and the importance of continued education and scholarship of world war ii history. this talk is part of their international conference. they provided the video. tyler: i'm the research fellow at the museum's institute for the study of war and democracy. it's a pleasure to be with you to serve as co-mc. up next is not just an important session on history, but how the history is preserved and taught in the 21st century. to chair this session, we have my colleague and good friend, dr. jason dossey. easy fellow at the institute for the study of war and democracy. he received his phd in to pay 13 from the university of chicago. before coming to the museum, he

taught at the university of southern mississippi and university of tennessee at knoxville. he's now one of our faculty members for the arizona state university online partnership and a key member of our historic services research services team. ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to turn it over to dr. jason dawsey. jason: let me welcome you to this session. never forget, in teaching holocaust history. i'm delighted to be able to participate in this and moderate this crucial session. the term "timely" is a term that is used a great deal for sessions, monographs, articles produced by historians and it is often overused. but in this case, it is not

overused or exaggerated at all. the subject of teaching and preserving holocaust history could not be more important in today's context. one can look for, in very different places, the reemergence of extreme white wing -- extreme right wing politics in hungary, the united states, brazil, the philippines, just taking the american case as a key example about the history that has unfolded before our eyes since charlottesville in august, 2017 to the storming of the u.s. capital on january 6 this year. to talk about, consider this issue what it means to teach the holocaust in this particular time, we are really fortunate to have two excellent commentators. going to introduce them in the

order that they will speak. first up is paul sparrow, he is the director of the franklin d roosevelt presidential library and museum, which is part of the national archives. before moving to the fdr library, he was the deputy director and senior vice president for broadcasting in new media at the newseum in washington, d.c.. he was the founding partner at that future information alliance and a pioneer in interactive digital media. prior to his work at the museum, paul was an emmy award-winning television producer. he began his career at the cbs affiliate in san francisco. following paul will be a long time friend of the museum, dr. alexandra ritchie, a history of central europe that specializes in defense and security issues.

she completed her ba at the university of victoria and went on to study at sainte anthony's college, oxford, where she wrote a doctoral thesis on the political manipulation of history in east and west journey. she's the author of a history of berlin, named one of the top 10 books of the year by american publishers weekly and hitler's, himmler, and the warsaw uprising which won a prize for best nonfiction book of 2014. she has contributed to many articles, document rates, radio programs and television programs. we are delighted she's the current convene or of the presidential counselors here at the national world war ii museum. she's a member of the senate of the museum in poland and they

cochair of history and international studies. i think by now everyone is familiar with the drill. drill in that both paul and alex will have 10 minutes to present and then we will come back for a 15 minute roundtable and then open it up to your questions. with that, paul, you will go first, and we will turn it over to alex. please, paul. paul: thank you very much. it really is an honor to be here today. i am looking forward to this conversation. it is a very important one. if we can start up with the first slide, please. the franklin roosevelt is an interlibrary in museum is located in high park, new york. it opened in 1941 and was the only library used by a sitting

president because he was august the president until 1945 next slide, please. henry was a hudson valley neighbor of fdr and became the secretary of the treasury in 1944 and served until 1945. he played an important role in the financing of america's participation in world war ii and kept an extraordinarily detailed diary, which recorded perhaps the most detailed inner workings of the roosevelt administers. we call them the morgenthaler holocaust collections project. the project is an initiative in a new online resource. the project seeks to enhance access to our records with high research value on holocaust studies. libraries already digitized thousands of documents and this project will create new research

and engagement tools for citizen curators to use and share online. you don't you ration, notification, and analysis are all part of the process. next slide, please. there are 860 volumes of these diaries containing every memo, letter, or report that crossed his desk as well as transcript of meetings and phone calls and after event notes on important meetings with more than 800,000 pages. these diaries are difficult to sort through and most of the material has nothing to do with the holocaust. however, the material that is related provides a rare insight into fdr's response to the crisis in europe. next slide, please. for example, on march 19 in 1938, fdr wanted to know if the u.s. could add austria's immigration quota to that of germany so refugees could be let into the country. we know a few days later during

the cabinet meeting, fdr asked morgenthaler to take the lead on this. we have seen in the diaries that he worked with the department of state to develop an international conference to address these issues on how you can increase the number of jewish refugees coming out. this led to the conference of july 1938. what the diaries reveal is fdr's deep commitment and pressure he was putting on his cabinet to come up with some solutions. of course, even though the conference was not successful, it still reflects his commitment to it. next slide, please. i'm sorry. go back one. so the morgenthau holocaust collections project is a landing page, giving access to a variety of resources for scholars, teachers, students, lifelong learners. these include teacher resources and curriculum guides, public programs, and selected content

and analysis from the collection created by the morgenthau scholar in residence, dr. abby. the doctor is currently working on a study of the nation of a refugee camp in new york in 1944. where letters came from the public. not only do we have the morgenthau diaries, we have the war refugee board papers and many other papers. this material of particular correspondence gives insight into the feeling at the time. next slide, please. this is about the conference. go back one slide please. ok. go forward.

we recently announced that international ritual conference examining the american responses to the holocaust digital possibilities for october 2021. this will be a follow-up to a conference that was held in the fdr library in 1993, which brought together the leading holocaust scholars of the day, resulting in a highly respected book. this conference hopes to combine things and new tools are used in digital humanities. next slide, please. the fdr portal website is a digital portal called franklin with nearly one million pages of documents which are easily available online. these documents include all of the complete master speech file with all of the drafts of fdr speeches going back to his high school. it also includes many significant documents and correspondence on miss roosevelt's papers. please go to the next. slide.

slide. there is no issue that causes controversy as the response to the systematic murder of millions of european jews carried out by nazi germany. there was a lot of misinformation online and nihilism corrosive to the field. students today have little to no awareness or understanding of what happened and when they do study it, they are often confused by the toxic stew of anti-semitism and neo-nazi propaganda which populates the web today. next slide, please. franken was about the gravesite sits a few yards away from the fdr library and is a historic site run by the national park service. over the years, people from all over the world have come to pay their respects including presidents, prime ministers, kings, queens, and military personnel from all military branches. next slide, please.

the library is currently closed but it contains more than 70 million pages of documents from hundreds of people involved in that was about administration or family. library handles thousands of research requests each year. i hope when the current coping shutdown ends, you will all come to visit. we all have an exciting visit which will be opening called fdr's final campaign which looks at the final days of his administration. that concludes my presentation. i look forward to hearing from alex. jason: thank you very much for that very interesting presentation. we will now turn it over to alex, please. alexandra: thank you so much, and welcome everybody to this very strange way of doing a conference. i miss seeing you all in person. thank goodness we have the tools to be able to at least do this. i am concentrating today on the holocaust, on history,

preservation, education, and i am going to focus primarily on east central europe. however, i would just touch on some of the subjects beforehand from the rest of the world. and of course, this is such a vast topic that i hope there will be a lot of questions in our roundtable discussion as well. there have been so many amazing, incredible changes in holocaust research since the war and it is hard to believe that immediately after the war, there was very little interest in the subject. of course, the cold war very quickly kicked in. the soviets were now seem to be this great threat to the world peace, focused on the reconstruction of germany, the german economy, german war criminals by the late 1940's and early 1950's who had been involved in the holocaust were given short sentences if at all, and there was very little focus on the fate of european jews during world war ii. this really began to change

internationally with the trial in 1961 which received widespread attention. strangely enough in west germany, it was a miniseries documentary called "holocaust," which came out in 1978 which actually awakened general interest. after this, young west german's started to ask their parents, what did you do during the war? did you know about the jews? did you know about the war? this led to people taking up an interest in historic studies. there was a debate among historians about how the holocaust would fit in the creation of a national identity in postwar germany. and so it was a very interesting time. by the 1980's, the study of the holocaust really had become an integral part of west german education and also in the rest of the west as well, western europe, u.k., north america. and trips to camps were normal

for school students. and there were other things as well which developed interest in the holocaust history. one was opened in 19 but quickly became a center of holocaust studies. the united states holocaust memorial museum was opened in 1980. there were many other developments as well. however, what is little-known is the situation in central and eastern europe behind the iron curtain was very different. under communism, there was strict censorship of all historical topics, particularly those to do with the second world war. this was history of the great patriotic war, and the holocaust, the persecution of jews were not considered to be suitable topics because all victims were victims of fascism.

the fact that the jews were specifically targeted by the germans and murdered in a particular way was simply ignored by history. auschwitz was opened in 1947, but the original museum did not specifically focus on jewish victims. again, it was dems of fascism. it is almost unfathomable now. when i was working way back when on my doctoral thesis in east germany -- on east germany, it was astonishing that there was no consideration paid to the holocaust and the unique fate of the jews whatsoever. this was particularly egregious in eastern and central europe because by far the majority of jewish victims died in this part of the world. i am talking to you from warsaw at the moment in the ghettos, in the concentration camps, in the extermination camps in poland,

and then after the invasion of the soviet union, the so-called holocaust bullets, were well over one million victims were murdered over pits, over ravines, burned alive in their houses, and so on. the soviet downplaying of the holocaust was really still surprising, but this did persist in one form or another until the collapse of communism. the collapse of the berlin wall led to widespread changes. there were many changes. for exam, immediately the auschwitz museum was changed to have a suitable display and content immediately dealing with the fate of the european jews in auschwitz. there were many other things that happened because of the collapse of the soviet union. for example, the opening up of archives and the tremendous amount of new material which came to scholars and historians, including one example was in

1991, the recovery from the state archives in moscow of the volumes of the books of the dead, which contained actual death certificates issued at auschwitz. there was really a surge of interest in the holocaust studies amongst scholars in central and eastern europe in the 1990's. this was in part fueled by a political issue, which was the application for membership to various european bargains. in particular, the european union. in order to join these new countries effectively, were expected to adopt the values espoused by western european countries. this included apart from many other things that need to understand world war ii history as it was taught and seen in the west, and this included of course the holocaust. this promise of never again, the commitment to fight against anti-semitism, to recognize the

importance of the holocaust became very important. this approach to history was broadly shared and accepted by the people of the new member states of the european union. there are some examples of this. for example, in 2000 during the stockholm forum on the holocaust, the common framework for the european holocaust remembrance research and education was agreed to. in 2005, the european parliament adopted its most complete resolution on the holocaust, establishing the 27th of january, which is the day in 1945 the auschwitz was liberated, as the european holocaust memorial day. and a new interest in a more difficult and controversial aspect arose as well with very great historians taking on memory. one example was the book "neighbors" about the july 1941

massacre committed against polish jews by their non-jewish polish neighbors. this effectively exploded the myth that poles were only sort of martyrs in world war ii and never ever perpetrators. this led to a great deal of research on this subject and similar subjects as well. there were other education initiatives that were important and are still today, including the march of the living primarily for high school students to the extent that now -- covid has obviously stopped that for the last year, but often there are more than 10,000 high school students who go on this march of remembrance to auschwitz. similar initiatives took place in other countries of central and eastern europe, including a research into crimes committed by the germans but also by a local collaborators. one example is the work on nazi

crimes in lithuania which showed a huge amount of light on that important complex. by the 2000's, things it seemed to be going in a very positive direction for us historians in terms of studying the holocaust. however, in recent years with the rise of populism, there has been a backlash. and really in all of the countries of the region 20 extent or another. in hungary, for example, the narrative of there is a hungarian victimhood and innocence. and world war ii is now seen as much more of a timeline of hungarian victimization. the house of terror museum which opened in 2002 in budapest narrates the story of hungary's 20th-century experience, but the bulk of the exhibition begins in 1944 with the german occupation

and not in 1940 one hungary joined the axis. this chronology present communism as a much longer and much more damaging terror in hungary that fascism. indeed fascism and communism are seen and presented in hungary and elsewhere now as two sides of the same coin. the theme of equating communism and fascism is becoming more common throughout the whole region. in lithuania, a top tourist destination is the museum of the victims of genocide, which was opened in 1992 in the former nkbd headquarters. 95% of the jewish population of lithuania was exterminated with the help of local collaborators. but this museum is not dedicated to that genocide. but rather to the victims of soviet occupation. again here in poland, after winning the election in 2015, a party began to pursue the politics of memory.

and on generate 26, 1918, meant that the law and the institute of national remembrance, which became known as the polish holocaust law in which anybody who claimed that the polish nation was responsible for nazi crimes could theoretically be imprisoned for three years. there was outcry. there was a backlash. however, the intention was clear. the previous education minister said he wanted to fight against the public dictatorship of left liberalist views in schools and would introduce more teaching about polish 20th-century history to revive patriotic attitudes while eradicating all instances of anti-polandism and on and on. this has become typical of the vocabulary of governments in this region. culminating in the very recent court case against barbara and

jan because of an error that was found in their book "night without fear" about the holocaust in poland. there are dissenting voices, a great many of them. and the government's surrounding this region have not managed to silence scholarship. in fact, there is a great deal of important work being done in poland and elsewhere. there are institutions in poland dedicated to the subject. the center for holocaust research founded in 2003. the centre in krakow and many others. in 1999, the then minister of education included the holocaust as mandatory subject of secondary school education and introduced a program for teaching the holocaust. this includes class trips to places like auschwitz and other concentration and extermination camps. most of these education innovations are still in place.

indeed, before covid hit, over 2.2 million people visit auschwitz every year. many of them are young people from poland and in the region. these are the sorts of things that one has to keep in mind when reading the headlines, that there are a great many people who disagree with what the government is trying to do. there are other initiatives in the region. just briefly, two examples of many. in 2002, the french catholic priest journeyed through eastern europe starting in ukraine, interviewing witnesses to the masses of shooting of jewish victims during the holocaust. this resulted in the publication in 2008 of his extraordinary book "holocaust by bullets." in a similar vein, professor caroline of the university and the u.k. has created noninvasive techniques for investigating places like many of these places where jews were murdered.

and so this has led to an enormous interest in the subject. in short, the study and education of the holocaust in this part of the world is multifaceted. it is constantly changing. it is very complex. but it certainly has shown no signs of abating either. thanks very much. jason: alex, thank you very much. you and paul both have given us so much to discuss. we would like to actually push this further in our roundtable. and so what i am going to be doing is posing questions to both of you. in this one, we will reverse the order and the alex go first and then paul. this first question, since paul raised the term nihilism and talked about issues on education and the like and the state of knowledge, i thought i would just raise year for both of you, what do you make of the alarming

reports of how little americans -- and we don't have to confine it to americans -- but how little americans know currently about the holocaust? and how do you think this is possible after decades of effort to push for greater understanding of the nazi genocide? alex please and then paul. alexandra: it is a very complex issue of course. and the question of history and memory and what is remembered and how it is remembered covers all sorts of different fields. i think one of the most obvious first things i would say is that this is becoming for the younger generation ancient history like napoleon or world war i. this is particularly true as the last survivors are very sadly now dying and the generation that lived through the wars is dying. therefore, the power of being able to sit with somebody and this into their stories in person and say this is what happened to me, i saw this with my own eyes, that is fading.

i think that will have a big effect and how we have to rethink teaching the holocaust and how we have to rethink the teaching of world war ii history in general. and then there are other things as well. as you mentioned, there is political elements and other reasons that some groups don't want to talk about the subject anymore. there are also holocaust deniers who actively deny that these terrible crimes ever took place. we face another great challenge with the internet and online trolling and media and abuse and so on, where as you mentioned earlier things like anti-semitism and the rise of abuse of people who discuss these topics is on the increase. this is again something we have to guard against, we have to continue to work against every way we can. jason: thank you. paul?

[no audio] alexandra: i can't hear paul. jason: paul, we can't hear you. paul: how is that? is that better? can you hear me now? jason: yes. paul: i think the key access here is we have to present the material we know actually happened. we have to go back to the primary source material, look at the records of what was going on at the time, use it to inform people so we are basing our educational processes and the conversations around things that were provable. again, i think you see in both denialism and in this national movement to rewrite history. what is critical is we put forth information that is indisputable and it is getting harder and harder because facts are becoming politicized. even the very motivations of people are being politicized.

i think it is important that we look at the challenges that were faced by the people during world war ii and of course after world war ii in the refugee crisis and how they tried to address them. when you take a single item like the final solution in the genocide of european jews, outside of the bigger context of what was happening in world war ii, it can be deceiving. why didn't they do this? because it was one of only 100 things they were trying to do at any given moment. contextualization is very important. the flow of information is important. but it is quick with that we come back to primary source material that we know is true. jason: i appreciate that, paul. i just want to add to that something that alex brought up, which is we certainly had controversies, political controversies about the teaching of the holocaust, the teaching of the genocide, and how that relates to national identity and

narratives about the war and victimhood. but there were many survivors, jewish survivors, etc., survivors of the nazi program that were there to talk about their own experiences throughout those. there are obviously fewer and fewer of them now. the loss of those witnesses is something irreplaceable. speaking of this issue about politics, i want to come back to something i mentioned in my opening remarks, which is about this reemergence of far-right politics. there are different variants of this. we can talk about right-wing populist, neofascist, neo-nazi politics in europe and north america. we can of course mention other cases. how do you account for this? the fact that these politics, which are so tainted with mass murder, with genocide, with war,

with imperialism, and yet they have reemerged in so many different places in the last few decades, how do we make sense of this? paul, i will rotate again. you and then alex. paul: i think if we take the lessons from the 1930's and look at how the fascist leaders during that time motivated their populations, and it comes down to a very simple technique that authoritarians and fascists have used throughout ages, which is pitting us against them. and you defined them however you want. the jews of europe were an easy target for hitler to use as the enemy. he can blame a lot of things on them. over the years, he can build up a rage and an anti-semitism that worked with the national consciousness at that point, which was that somehow germany had been betrayed in world war i

and it was an unfair truce and they had to go back and fix the injustices that were imposed on germany after world war i. it was all part of this global jewish conspiracy. you see that same technique being used throughout the 50, 60 years after world war ii as neo-nationalist sides that they would have to redefine enemies. when the cold war happened between the soviet union and the united states, there were these obvious enemies. people were looking for someone to blame their problems on. this would allow them to define a target and attack that target. to do that, you would need to undermine the narrative that evolved after world war ii about this specific genocide targeting the jews of europe, the horrors associated with it, and the creation of this jewish state of israel, all of which are connected.

you will also see this denialism coming out of islamic countries, who are trying to undermine the role of israel. the complex city is almost always about opposition. who can we demonize so we can motivate our base to take action, to do what we want, to support us politically, to give us power? it is a fairly effective technique. jason: thank you, paul. you kind of reminded us about the dynamics of scapegoating and the perpetual problem. alex, please. alexandra: i find the denial of the holocaust and what happened given that there has been so much evidence, so much research, so much material simply baffling. i don't know where it comes from. i don't have an answer. i cannot fathom it. having had a father-in-law who was in auschwitz and having heard about what was done there to people, to human beings, it is simple beyond belief that anybody would deny it.

and there are some very good points made that people look for scapegoats, people look for somebody else to blame. and we did see this in the 1930's. and we see tendency toward it today as well. i think there is another development which is perhaps more general but which is tremendously and that is the post-world war ii world order that was set up so carefully and with such good intentions, whether it is for the united nations, nato, the whole attempt to not punish germany but to try and reintegrate at least west germany into the western economic system to get europe back on its feet and all these things that are done are unraveling now. this is very dangerous because anti-semitism and the denial is one element of the denial of a very important world order that was put in place after 1945 when

the lessons of the horror of world war ii were very clearly in the minds of the policymakers back then. i think that again it comes back to this question of understanding why these systems were put in place, understanding the world order we have enjoyed peacefully and most of the world . we have not had at least a world war since 1945 despite all the other conflicts that have taken place, and we should again go back to the real root of that system and why it was put in place and look at the horrors of world war ii and things like anti-semitism and remind ourselves constantly and students as well what it can lead to if you let emotion of resentment take over. paul: if i can add one thing, if you look at what general eisenhower did when the camps were finally liberated, he insisted that reporters and publishers and news crews came

in and documented the horror that was going on. there were a number of american office of war information from crews that traveled throughout europe collecting nazi film and primary source material and document what was happening in the camps. a lot of that was used in the nuremberg trials. it would prove they wanted to set the record of what had actually happened because eisenhower and was about and others realized there was going to be a whitewashing, the people were going tonight this happened. that material is so important today because it is undeniable. jason: thank you both. if i could just add as well that in addition to the resurgence of anti-semitism and this openly fascist ideas, there is of course islamophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment since 9/11 and/for the 2008 economic

crisis. those have also reappeared, reemerged. demonization of ethnic minorities. so a whole range of really noxious politics that have come back. with that, i think i will turn it back over to my colleague tyler to take us through the audience q&a. tyler: thank you so much jason and to our panelists. as i was listening to some of these excellent points being raised, it occurred to me that these issues of denialism obviously go back right to 1945 and some of the germans when being interviewed by american journalists even after the german citizens had witnessed the horrors of the holocaust, they would say things like, well, hitler could not have known about this, or that the jews somehow must have deserved this. it is disturbing to see how persistent these mets our --

myths are. to alex richie's point, it is a point that we have this connection to your survivors and witnesses speak about the horrors of the holocaust. to that point, the currently is partnering with a foundation for a temporary exhibit pioneering new technologies that allows individuals to actually converse with recordings of holocaust survivors and soldiers liberated the camps. -- soldiers who liberated the camps. we have time now for audience q&a. our first question comes from jack, and he asks, based on your discussion of west german ddr teaching dichotomy, does that explain maybe in part by the afd has such a strong base of support in the former east germany? i with her that to dr. -- i will

throw that to dr. richie first. alexandra: absolutely. the dichotomy is important in this. west germany went from 1945 to a period where the holocaust and world war ii history was not discussed, but once we got into the 1970's, 1980's, 1990's, young generations really did start to question their parents and grandparents and really started to dig down into world war ii history in germany to the extent that all of the innovations that we see after the collapse of the berlin wall, many of these things were being put in place beforehand. for example, the topography of terror and berlin was started after 1987 in an attempt to look at the war from the view of the perpetrators. this is very brave. germany has been magnificent. it is in west germany, a confronting of the nazi past.

this did not take place in east germany. the wall collapsed in 1989, but until that point, i lived in germany and my doctoral thesis was on the control of world war ii history. people were soup we not talk about the holocaust and many other crimes as well. in east germany, they were told quite literally that bach and beethoven were from eastern germany and hitler was from west germany and all of the nazis and evil people from world war ii had gone over to the west. this was part of the education system and so on. not only were they told this fabrication, but they were also not taught how to incisively look at historical records, documents, do research, have discussions, disagreements, debates, arguments about the past. you were taught a certain line and had to stick to that line. there were some very good historians in east germany but they were not given the freedom to publish what they wanted to

because they were always in fear of being punished for this. yes, i think this has had a huge effect on the rise of the afd. there are other things like social economics as well. definitely the fact that the east germans did not go through this long process of decades and decades of re-examining history that happened in western germany that has had a huge effect.. jason: afd means alternative for germany come alternative for deutschland. it has become strong in germany and east germany in recent years. wanted to clarify that. tyler: thank you so much, both of you. we have another question now from tim, and he says he has toured the jewish section of prague and was struck that the nazis script the synagogues of

their religious artifacts while he seemed to have ignored the cemeteries and left them alone. was there any particular reason for that? dr. richie? alexandra: they did the same thing in warsaw. there is a huge cemetery in warsaw, a cemetery in prague. the idea is everything else in the warsaw ghetto was destroyed. everything. it was supposed to become a park called himmler park. there was a notion that if you keep the cemetery, in a way it is a relic of what we destroyed, what a great job we have done. because the anti-semitism among the nazis was so extreme that they blamed the jews for everything. they felt, they believed in their ideology that they were ridding the world or europe of this terrible evil. this was in a way kind of a proof of what they had done, what they had accomplished in their very twisted worldview.

tyler: thank you very much. it is really incredible how cemeteries can be sources of cultural memory and even in their very non-destruction can have symbolic meaning there. our next question comes from shane lynn of the macarthur museum of military history. shane asks, do you think that museums have a greater responsibility now more than ever to devote more efforts in education, programming, and exhibits related to holocaust history? i will throw that over to paul. i would look to hear your thoughts on it. paul: absolutely. i believe museums and archives and libraries have an essential role to play because they are history and have the highest ability of any of the public institutions. the public believes the things they hear and see at museums. it is vitally important. also that museums are based on

artifacts and objects that are real. i think in this digital world these days when someone comes and visits the holocaust museum and washington, d.c., or auschwitz memorial, they see these things and they have enormous emotional impact. we all know that emotional intensity dramatically increases retention. when you see something or learn something and are emotionally moved by it, you keep that memory very vivid. i think museums across the world have struggled in some ways in terms of, how do you tell the story? it is such a horrific story. particularly if you will young children coming through. what images are appropriate for young children to see, for families to see? it is vitally important that these museums, libraries that have the records, archives take responsibility. it is one of the reasons why we are hosting this conference in october, because we want people from around the world to start finding new ways of connecting our content.

so much of the material has been siloed in different areas in different institutions around the world. we need to find ways to connect this contents, connect the data so people can access it from wherever they are. until fabey recently, if you want to look at the morgenthau papers, you had to come to new york. that is we deaconess. we need to find ways for museums and libraries and archives to put the stories out there and that access happened so people everywhere can access this material and draw their own conclusions. tyler: i could not agree more with you. it is fantastic to work your institution is doing to make this more accessible. future historians will undoubtedly thank you greatly for this work. i should also mention the world war ii museum just broke ground on its final building, the liberation pavilion, which will feature several galleries devoted to the holocaust and its impact on our world today. our next question from the audience -- alexandra: if i can jump in just

for a second quickly on the subject, museums have to be preserved. we have to protect them. you see in central europe at the moment, in poland for example, the government has disagree with their point of view and are dismissed. it is important to remember the importance of these institutions. we are having a conference at the world war ii museum as well looking precisely at the subject. how have places around the world seen and projected in their museums for example japanese history, chinese history, russian history, and how it is so important to go back to the original sources. those are preserved in museums. tyler: absolutely. thank you so much for adding that. it is very important also. for more information about these conferences in september and november of this coming year, you can check out our website.

our next question from the audience comes from dennis. he asks, how were captured jewish g.i.'s treated by the german army? i believe that possibly to jason, if you want to take a stab at that one. jason: it varied a great deal, dennis, depending on who is doing the capturing. so there certainly are cases of jewish g.i.'s that end up in the german system, the european system, who are singled out, who are treated differently when other p.o.w.'s because of their jewishness -- that is document to. -- differently than other p.o.w.'s because of their jewishness. that is document. as p.o.w.'s, their treatment was

maintained by the army, not the s.s., gestapo, etc. in many cases, they were treated like p.o.w.'s. but we have instances where they are singled out because of their jewishness. it was an across-the-board policy in the system itself. obviously, if they fell into the hands of the s.s., gestapo, etc., it was a totally different story. alexandra: just to jump in, it is generally speaking true that jewish p.o.w.'s from the western countries, americans, bricks, so on, were treated well under the geneva convention. but the exception was soviet jewish p.o.w.'s or those captured in poland. if they were found to be jewish, they were murdered. there were about 85,000 soviet p.o.w.'s who were murdered because they were jewish. they were sent to extermination

camps along with their fellow jewish citizens from other countries as well. it depended where you were captured and from which country. tyler: thank you. paul: there is an issue also around the americans's decision not to bomb auschwitz and other identified death camps, because they did not know who were being kept at these camps. there was certainly some intelligence that polish soldiers and soviet soldiers, prisoners of war were being kept in these camps and were being killed. there was a deep concern that if they tried to bomb these camps that they would be killing american p.o.w.'s and other allied p.o.w.'s at these camps, which were enormous. of course, there was no precision bombing back then. you had no idea where the bombs were going to land. there was great fear that some of these american p.o.w.'s were being kept in these concentration camps. tyler: thank you very much three of you.

that is an excellent question from our audience. so our next question comes from bobby. they asked, there are so many excellent movies on the holocaust. do you feel they are helpful? this is an important element because movies form such a popular memory in many countries of historical events. paul, if you would take a stab at that one first. paul: absolutely. i think popular culture and history are vitally important. people do not read history books. i have a history nerd. i read history books. things that create a strong emotional response are important for telling stories and put the stories in context that people can relate to. they are often about individuals and families and small groups, and it is easier to relate to the stories of individuals than it is 6 million people died. that is an abstract number. it is hard for people to relate

to. but when you see the personal stories and understand the degradation and humiliation and horror and terror that was happening in these camps, few things can communicate that as effectively as film. but also with being portrayed in television shows, when the holocaust he came out in the united states, nuremberg, it was shocking to the american public and shifted the conversation in america. film and television are very important in keeping his history alive, getting people engaged, and hopefully in what we call planting a seed. you cannot tell a whole story and he fell but you can plant the seed. as the seed grows, grows their interest, and they can pursue that story and learn more about. alexandra: i so agree with that. film is so important. just as long as they are fantastic films about

the holocaust, about son of soul, should lose list, and my personal favorite "the pianist," which is so accurate. i encourage film directors to be as absolutely accurate as possible. the stories are so extraordinary anyway that you don't need to add hollywoodization to them. i am not saying make documentaries per se, but it is possible to make films about the holocaust which are very powerful and yet accurate as well. jason: i just wanted to echo what alex mentioned. she mentioned it to have those films. should lose list and the pianist , they are not just very important films and have stirred a letter popular interest about the holocaust, for a lot of americans, they have exposed to the genocide through the

anne frank story. but the stories about polish eastern european, soviet jews where literally millions of people were murdered were often much less known. films like schindler's list and the pianist insured that people saw something about the stories in these histories and had to see these places where the nazis had focused their efforts early on with mass killing at and genocide not left out of the understanding of what was happened. tyler: thank you. excellent points. these are fantastic points. we have another audience question from joe, who asks, in your view, how could american educators improve teaching the holocaust and increasing skepticism, cynicism, and internet -- the ability

to avoid internet deniers? i will feel that went to dr. richie first. alexandra: we have touched on some of these already. going back to the original sources, making sure the interaction between even if they are no longer with us, between holocaust survivors and their testimonies on film, for example. having teachers extremely well versed and educated and teachers coming to these places in poland or in central europe and actually see for themselves so when they go back to their classrooms, they can really see what it felt like be in a place like auschwitz. i think these sorts of things are very important. and yet i am tremendously impressed by the resource materials, education resource materials that have been developed over the past decade or so, and i think they really do make a very big difference. my number one thing is to go back to the source materials and

stay accurate and stay out of the truth to the material and to the testimonies. paul: i think one of the biggest challenges educators face, the restrictions placed on the curriculum by the testing system. the standards of learning testing system. if you look at most high school textbooks, world war ii gets two or three pages in american history. holocaust will occasionally only get a paragraph or something. it is very difficult for them when they are covering these broad scopes of history to really drill down into the reality of what the circumstances were. you can some of the advanced placement classes in high school and you can have a much more comprehensive analysis of this. but i think the most important thing for educators to do is to go back and tell those personal stories. whether using documentary or film or the anne frank story -- one of the reasons the end frank story resonates so much with students is because they are her

age. she is in a room locked up with her diary. it allows people to connect with characters in it. vitally important because that is what makes them interesting. this generation of students, world war ii seems like ancient history. it is like teaching the civil war to somebody my age. very hard time relating it to their life today. so i think finding those personal characters and educators can tell their stories and through those personal stories, students can learn so much more. tyler: thank you both very much. we have time for one more quick question. it comes from jacob smith, and they ask, aside from holocaust denialism, what is in your view the biggest myth or misconception that many people have about the holocaust? paul, would you like to go first? paul: sure. i will go first on that because i have spent a lot of time on

this and undocumented reason other things. many people think the holocaust was a secret, that we did not know what was happening in germany during the war, and it was not until the camps were liberated that we realized the horror that was going on. that is simply not true. we knew from very early on what was happening. the initial concentration camps started opening in the mid-1930's. we knew that there was this planned for the extermination of european jews. we knew that they were being moved into these camps. we knew this was a high priority that the nazi regime, even at the end of the war but they were desperate, port resources into maintaining these camps and moving people. the idea that the american public did not know about it was not true. there was a major traveling show with entertainers selling out madison square garden talking about the fact that germans were massacring these jews. i think that is one of the biggest policies that we did not know.

we knew, americans knew, just did not believe. alexandra: and i think that from my perspective, working on this subject from here in central europe, one of the things that always strikes me is when i was growing up learning about this first, we tended to think the anne frank story or german jews trying to deal with the consequences of the nuremberg law or whatever, but in fact, less than 1% of the jewish victims of the holocaust were germans. most of the victims are killed, murdered in poland, russia, the baltic states, and ukraine into the soviet union and russia. the horror of what happened in eastern and central europe, the violence is very little really understood still, which is why it is so important to have more and more research and more and more people coming out trying to

figure out what exactly did happen out here. that is one of the myths i think. because of the iron curtain and because these things happened in firework entries -- faraway countries in the east, there is such a focus on jews jews what happened to the of western europe and not that much real understanding of the horrors of the eastern front and what happened out here. tyler: absolutely. jason: i would add to that just by saying very quickly that, speaking of misconception, for so long there was almost this singular focus on the camps, extermination camps, which were crucial, but that often meant neglecting, alex just pointed to it, the role of these mobile murder squads and killing more than a million soviet jews. face to face killing where people were rounded up and murdered very close to their homes, very close to their communities.

we know obviously much more about those incidents and the perpetrators and the victims, but as was pointed out, most of this has occurred since the end of the cold war, since the 1990's. tyler: thank you very much, all of you, for weighing in on such an important question. that is all the time we have for this session. i want to thank all three of our panelists for this excellent discussion on such an important topic and for a wonderful discussion. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> if you like american history tv, keep up with us during the week on facebook, twitter, and youtube. learn about what happened this day in history and see preview clips of upcoming programs. follow us. >> a century ago, on may 31, 1921, racial tensions in tulsa, oklahoma, led to an armed mob of white men marching on the city's predominantly african-american greenwood district.

the arrest of a young black man for his interactions with a white woman in a downtown office building triggered the arrest. over the next day, the neighborhood known as black wall street would be the seat of the shootings, arson, and learning. official totals for the number killed are at 36 but historians believe the number was as high as 300. american history tv and "washington journal" will be live on memorial day may 31 at 8:30 a.m. eastern to mark the anniversary and explore the consequences of the day's events. joining us from pete olson historical society and museum -- from the tulsa historical so society and museum will be an author. >> american history tv on c-span3, exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend.

today at six a copy of eastern on american artifacts, explore the memorial at the national gallery of art dedicated to civil war kernel gold shot and the volunteer inventor infantry. -- volunteer infantry. and a look at the george w. bush presidential library and museum and how the complex has entered a new phase since the death of the president and his wife. exploring the american story. what american history tv today on c-span3. >> american history tv on c-span3. every weekend, documenting america's story. funding comes from these telogen companies and more. including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? no, it is way more than that. >> comcast is partnering to create wi-fi enabled zones so

students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast along with these television companies support american history tv on c-span3 as a public service. >> next, a 19 59 film that sets out to answer the question -- what is jazz? part documentary and part dramatic essay, "the cry of jazz" argues the music form could only have been invented by blacks as an expression of the joy and sorrow of african-american life. it is highly critical of white society, arguing that unless america becomes less racist, it will not survive. this independent work by black composer and first time filmmaker edward bland was shot in chicago by a crew of volunteers and includes a soundtrack by influential jazz artist sun ra.

the work was selected in 2010 for the library of congress national film registry, an annual list of 25 films deemed culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. "the cry of jazz" refers to african-americans as negroes, the preferred term at the time. ♪ ♪