Latest news with #NurembergLaws
Spectator
4 days ago
- Politics
- Spectator
Why the Imperial War Museum's Holocaust error matters
The Imperial War Museum is supposed to be one of Britain's guardians of historical truth. Yet in its description of the Nuremberg Laws, the Nazi edicts that laid the legal groundwork for the Holocaust, the museum claims they defined Jews by religious observance. It's a small phrase, but it's entirely wrong. And it matters. The Nazis did not care whether you kept kosher, went to synagogue or even believed in God. The Nuremberg Laws defined Jewishness by ancestry: if three of your four grandparents were Jewish, you were Jewish. You could be baptised, married to a Christian, serving in the German army. None of it mattered. What mattered was blood, and Jewish blood was inferior. That was the essence of Nazi anti-Semitism. So when the Imperial War Museum reframes the laws as being about religious observance, it blurs that essential truth. It may only be one information board, but this reflects a growing pattern of soft Holocaust distortion – not outright denial, but something subtler, a steady sanding down of uncomfortable facts. Across the Atlantic, America's largest teachers' union, the NEA, recently published an education handbook for its three million members that somehow failed to mention Jews at all when discussing International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Instead, it referred vaguely to 'more than 12 million victims from different faiths.' The six million Jews murdered are dissolved into a melting pot of victims, their specific targeting erased. This is not accidental. It's the logical end of a mindset that treats specificity as divisive, identity as negotiable, and history as something that can be endlessly reframed to fit the political mood. To say the Holocaust was about 'different faiths' is to suggest a pluralism that did not exist. Whoopi Goldberg infamously said on her talk show in 2022 that the Holocaust wasn't about race, but 'about man's inhumanity to man.' She later apologised, but by then, millions had already been exposed to this notion. There's a reason why this soft revisionism is dangerous. It shifts the moral lesson of the Holocaust from the truth – that entire families were exterminated because of their race – to a vague, feel-good warning against 'intolerance' in general. It turns a unique atrocity into just another example of prejudice, no different from a dozen others. Once that specificity is gone, the Holocaust becomes easier to repurpose for contemporary political battles. It is being used to describe the war in Gaza, even though no real parallels can be drawn – not in terms of Israel's actions or its motivations. And when Jews are erased from their own history, it becomes easier to downplay anti-Semitism in the present. Britain's national institutions should be the last place we find such errors. They are entrusted with telling history accurately, especially the parts that make us uncomfortable. If they can't get the Nuremberg Laws right, they hand ammunition to those who would happily rewrite the Holocaust altogether. Holocaust distortion, minimisation, and denial are already rife on and offline. On Telegram, half of the content about the Holocaust denies or distorts facts. Teachers in UK schools have reported hearing Holocaust denial and distortion from pupils. This becomes even more dangerous when trusted institutions get it wrong. As for the IWM, the wording of its information board would have gone through several layers of expert historians and professionals before it was displayed. Worryingly, the museum has refused to change the board, despite two leading historians pointing out that it is incorrect. Caro Howell, the IWM's director general, is reported to have written that, 'we stand by the curatorial choices that we have made and that our expert advisers have reviewed'. History shows that small errors can have big consequences, especially when they reinforce an existing trend. The Holocaust didn't begin with gas chambers; it began with words, laws, and a reframing of identity that turned millions of Jews into 'others'. Much of the language used by the Nazis in the 1930s is being used to dehumanise and demonise Jews today. Although often disguised as anti-Zionism, the rhetoric is eerily familiar. Many Jewish businesses, homes and institutions have been sprayed with Swastikas since the war in Gaza started. They're now appearing in schools, too. In 1945, the world promised 'Never again'. In 2025, perhaps we should start by insisting: never forget – and never distort.
Euronews
4 days ago
- Politics
- Euronews
Imperial War Museum defends Holocaust caption criticised by historians
It's just one word – but two leading Holocaust historians say it warps history. The Imperial War Museum (IWM) in London has refused to alter an information panel in its Holocaust Galleries after two leading historians criticised its wording as historically inaccurate. Describing the Nazi's 1935 Nuremberg race laws, the disputed caption reads: 'Under the provision of the law, a person was defined as Jewish based on how many observant Jewish grandparents they had, even if they were not personally Jewish themselves.' The word 'observant' triggered concerns from a retired academic visiting from New York last year. She wrote to the museum arguing the phrase was historically inaccurate, saying it 'must be changed'. Announced on 15 September 1935 at a Nazi Party rally, the Nuremberg Laws turned Nazi racial ideology into law. They defined who counted as Jewish, stripped Jews of citizenship, and banned marriage or sexual relations between Jews and 'Aryans.' Speaking to The Guardian, the retired academic - who asked not to be named – said she was 'extraordinarily impressed' by the galleries overall, but 'then I came to the race laws, and I know that 'observant' Jewish grandparents just made no sense. It disregards the vast majority of the Jewish population who are not observant." She added that the Nazis aimed to eradicate all Jews regardless of religious observance: 'This is such a misleading impression of the Nazi outlook that for me it's reprehensible that it stays in the public domain.' The academic then turned to two prominent Holocaust historians for comment. Christopher Browning, known for his work documenting the Final Solution, said: "The issue was not whether the grandparent was observant but whether his or her birth had been registered with the Jewish community." Timothy Snyder, historian of Nazi Germany and Eastern Europe, agreed: "It did not matter whether the grandparents were observant … No one was saved from persecution, as the wording incorrectly implies, by having grandparents who were not observant." How have the Imperial War Museum responded? In a statement made to Euronews Culture, a spokesperson from the Imperial War Museum said it 'takes comments regarding our interpretation very seriously' and acknowledged 'the sensitivities regarding this caption.' The museum noted that with history 'as complex and sensitive as the Holocaust, questions of interpretation and nuance will be raised by audiences from time to time,' adding that it always investigates concerns thoroughly. The IWM stressed there was 'absolutely no suggestion' across its Holocaust Galleries that the Nazis' persecution of Jews was restricted to those who were religiously practising or their descendants. Rather, the caption in question was tied specifically to a 1935 diagrammatic poster associated with the Nuremberg Laws. The word 'observant,' it said, referred in this particular case to people 'formally associated with Jewish religion in public records, such as birth and marriage certificates and civil registry documents.' The statement explained the intention was to show how, despite believing Jewishness was biologically determined, the Nazis sometimes relied on religious affiliation in official records when categorising people – 'unable to find any scientific - or any other - basis for their claims.' The museum also pointed to nearby text making clear that 'many of those whom the laws identified as Jews had never identified as Jewish themselves' and that this method of categorisation was never a meaningful or restrictive basis for Nazi persecution. The IWM said it was 'considering whether some further clarification should be added to the caption in consultation with external advisors, in line with our normal processes."
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
György Kun, survivor of Dr Mengele's experiments on twins at Auschwitz
György Kun, who has died aged 93, was one of the last Hungarian survivors of the infamous experiments carried out on twins at Auschwitz by Dr Josef Mengele; in fact György and his brother Istvan were not twins, but Mengele's belief that they were probably saved them from the gas chambers. György Kun was born on January 23 1932 in the Hungarian village of Vállaj to Jewish parents, Márton Kuhn, a farm manager, and his wife Piroska. His brother Istvan, to whom he bore a strong resemblance and to whom he was close, was born 11 months later. Life was good until, starting in 1938, Hungary – under Regent Admiral Miklós Horthy –passed a series of anti-Jewish measures in emulation of Germany's Nuremberg Laws. György was denied entry into grammar school, but his parents managed to enrol him in a local high school instead, though he was often attacked by other children as he made his way home from school. In early 1942, however, Horthy, in an effort to distance himself from Hitler's regime, dismissed the pro-German prime minister, László Bárdossy, and replaced him with the more moderate Miklós Kállay, who resisted Nazi pressure to deport Jews. Rightly fearing that Hungary was trying to contact the Allies, the Germans occupied the country on March 19 1944. Shortly afterwards, the Kuns were evicted from their farm and sent to a nearby ghetto, and from there to a brick factory, before being loaded on to a train to Auschwitz in May 1944. In testimony György Kun gave to his daughter in 1999, he recalled being greeted by Nazi soldiers with dogs and lined up for inspection. 'Mum was holding our hands. Dad was walking next to us. Then he was separated from us.' György, Istvan and their mother were taken to see Mengele. 'He asked my mother one word,' György recalled, ''Zwillinge [twins]?' My mother did not speak German, but instinctively she replied, 'Ja'.' The boys were immediately separated from their mother. They never saw her again. Taken for registration, the boys gave their true dates of birth and the mistake was discovered. One of the adult prisoners tasked with taking their details, however, was Ernő (Zvi) Spiegel who, with his twin Magda, had been the oldest of the twins deported to Auschwitz and who, for whatever reason, had been appointed 'Zwillingevater,' ('twins' father') by Mengele and put in charge of about 80 boy twins. Spiegel knew that if Mengele learnt that György and Istvan were not twins they would be sent to the gas chambers. So even though he knew that if he disobeyed orders he would be killed on the spot, he filled in false dates of birth on their forms to maintain the pretence and give them a chance of survival: 'Then the numbers were tattooed on our arms.' György became A-14321 and Istvan A-14322. It is not known what experiments they endured, but both boys survived Auschwitz and were reunited with their father, who had ended up in Dachau. During the 1956 revolution, Istvan emigrated to the US but György remained in Hungary. In 1960 he married Agnes and settled in Budapest. Due to his experiences in Auschwitz he suffered post traumatic stress disorder and other ailments, but he always remained grateful to Spiegel, who had became a father figure to dozens of Auschwitz twins, trying to keep the children together and teaching them lessons remembered from his own school days. György recalled how he had led his surviving charges back home after the camp was liberated, how he arranged for older boys to get the younger boys home after their ways parted, and how he gave them hope 'that maybe, one day, life would be joyful again'. György Kun is survived by his daughter. György Kun, born January 23 1931, died February 5 2025 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
