This Sunday, The Jewish Museum in New York will open an exhibit that features symbols of Nazism. Thirteen contemporary artists from the United States, Europe and Israel have contributed to the exhibit, according to a recent article in The Christian Science Monitor.

This has outraged many survivors of the Holocaust, who feel that the art brings “unnecessary pain to Holocaust survivors and their families.”

It is hard to criticize these people, since they have obviously been through something so horrible that it pains the mind just to imagine, but the Holocaust is still part of the history of the Jewish people. Part of the history of German people. Part of world history.To ignore it is a great disservice to victims of the Holocaust. It would mean that they really did die for absolutely no reason. However, bringing the history of the atrocities committed in Europe not so long ago to light allows people to learn from it. Many young people today know very little about what dominated many of their grandparents? lives. This is wrong.

To act like it didn?t happen, and try to silence any reference to it, will keep what is arguably the most important act in history in the dark. This does not make sense. The Holocaust happened and it was absolutely horrible, so let?s have it open for discussion. The Nazi art exhibits are not celebrating the Holocaust, rather, they are being brought forth to try and produce some semblance of understanding to those who may want and need it. As James Young, an expert on Holocaust memorials at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, said in the Christian Science Monitor article, “It?s better to address the questions, even though they make us uncomfortable, than for them to be hidden.” Why just accept the Holocaust and move on? Seems that discussing it, and trying to answer how and why, would be far more effective in preventing further atrocities.

Obviously you can?t have a Nazi exhibit dealing with the Holocaust without many hurt feelings. Something would be terribly wrong if an exhibit having to do with millions upon millions of murders wouldn?t bring a furor of emotion. But hurt feelings are no reason to ignore history. Your ninth grade history teachers, however good they were, need help. They could not possibly have had the time to discuss the Holocaust and everything surrounding it effectively. There is too much other stuff they have to cover under the title of World History.

Reminding people about the Holocaust can only do good. It was so horrible and massive that any other event in the history of the world cannot be compared to it without doing a huge injustice to people who died in this awful time.

Showing a blind eye to what has killed millions puts people in a vulnerable position. One that could possibly open the door to more hatred. Instead, be educated about what happened, so we?ll know if it ever begins to surface again.

E-mail Russ Edmondson at [email protected].

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