Holocaust Supremacism Rules Even NonJewish Museums Beresniova

Holocaust Education in Lithuania: Community, Conflict, and the Making of Civil Society, by Christine Beresniova. 2017

Western Elitist Attempts to Control the Narrative of the Few Memorial Museums That Present the Genocidal Sufferings of Non-Jews

This book presents information that some readers may find controversial. But is must be told.

YES, VIRGINIA. HOLOCAUST SUPREMACISM DOES CREATE A ZERO-SUM GAME. NON-JEWISH SUFFERINGS ARE EFFECTIVELY MARGINALIZED

Beresniova comments, “It was evident that the topic of the Soviet Occupation lacked the corollary international prestige and power that accompanied US diplomatic involvement in Holocaust issues.” (p. 58). Yeah, no kidding.

ACTIVE HOSTILITY, BY WESTERN ELITES, TOWARDS LOCAL MUSEUMS THAT FOCUS ON THE SUFFERINGS OF EASTERN EUROPEANS

Holocaust memorial museums and memorials, the world over but especially in the West, are a dime a dozen. What few memorial museums there are, to the sufferings of non-Jews, are subject to political pressures to dilute or downplay their message.

The informed reader can think of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk. Owing to the earlier influence of Donald Tusk, it originally had a bland so-called universalistic message. Enter the election of PiS. Poland’s foreign-owned media expressed hostility as soon as the PiS government indicated its very reasonable desire for the Museum to focus more explicitly on Polish suffering.

The same type of Jewish-centered hostility towards remembrance of the sufferings of non-Jews occurs in Lithuania. Author Beresniova alludes to it, “The comment about real (and thus potentially unreal) genocides was in reference to the Museum of Genocide Victims in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, which is repeatedly criticized by international elites for failing to include meaningful information about the Holocaust.” (p. 56). As if all the Holocaust museums and monuments, the world over, are still not enough!

But this does not stop with merely passive hostility to the sufferings of non-Jews. Beresniova inadvertently makes this clear, “Some international elites do not refer to the Museum of Genocide Victims by its name because the Museum only discusses Soviet crimes, which, as the Special Envoy to Combat and Monitor Antisemitism noted previously is not ‘real’ genocide…The reluctance to use the moniker given by Lithuanians to their own Museum is a kind of protest over their interpretation of what constitutes a genocide.” (p. 56).

In other words, if the victims are not Jews, it is not a “real” genocide. Is it any wonder that some people think that Jews are trying to control the narrative?

[2018 UPDATE: Evidently caving to external pressures, the Lithuanian authorities have renamed the Museum of Genocide Victims the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights.]

THE UNITED STATES TRIES TO BULLY EASTERN EUROPEANS INTO BUYING THE HOLOCAUST-IS-SPECIAL NARRATIVE THAT RULES OVER THE USA

Even Holocaust-receptive Lithuanians have recognized the fact that teaching the Holocaust is a top-down directive that comes from the West. (e. g, p. 41).

This can be generalized. Beresniova writes, “Approaching Holocaust education as an imperative had led to challenges in Lithuania as some appreciate how elites have the ability to shape dominant discourses about the Holocaust while others resent the perceived intrusion. Of course, the US doesn’t have to account for HOW AND WHY THE HOLOCAUST BECAME AN UNQUESTIONED CULTURAL ARTIFACT IN ITS COUNTRY, some Lithuanians argue, because of its powerful place in the international community.” (pp. 42-43; Emphasis added).

This is not to say that the USA is malevolent. Instead, the standard Judeocentric discourse about the Nazis and WWII is now so ingrained in western thinking that it’s expression has become as natural, to American elitists, as the breathing of air. Beresniova recognizes as much, “In the end, many US elites equate western assumptions about culture and the importance of Holocaust education as the ‘normal’ view to be emulated by others.” (p. 59).

ORWELLIAN LANGUAGE IN THE WEST’S ATTEMPTS TO FORCE HOLOCAUST SUPREMACISM ONTO EASTERN EUROPEANS

This book features the standard Holocaustspreak phrase, “coming to terms with the past”. (p. xi, 59). Needless to say, the shoe is never on the other foot. But wait, it gets even better.

Beresniova comments, “The Holocaust has been used as a litmus test for the DEMOCRATIC MATURITY of post-Soviet states…What constitutes sufficient or adequate progress on Holocaust education and who gets to decide?” (p. 164; Emphasis added). In other words, Eastern Europeans (note that Poland was one of the pioneers of democracy centuries ago) are (condescendingly) somehow “democratically immature”, and, moreover, acceptance of the standard Judeocentric narrative on WWII is now the hallmark of democratic maturity! George Orwell must be turning over in his grave!

IMPLICATIONS OF THE PREEMINENCE OF THE HOLOCAUST: THE WEST HAS NO REAL INTEREST IN THE SUFFERINGS OF EASTERN EUROPEAN PEOPLES

Beresniova candidly writes, “Disdain for western insistence on Holocaust education stems in part from Eastern Europe’s recent reemergence from Soviet totalitarianism. However, it also comes from the recent memory that the liberal west, which so prizes human rights, did little to exculpate Soviet Socialist Republics once operating as independent states from Soviet repression. The painful irony is that the west is moralizing about democracy and higher ideals to post-Soviet states left to suffer for five decades under human rights abuses.” (p. 42).