Online Petition for a Permanent Holocaust Gallery
at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights

Dear friend,

No doubt you have read in the press, the letters from those in our city, province and indeed across Canada who are against there being a permanent Holocaust gallery in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Unfortunately, these letters do not represent a small number of disorganized people with perhaps misguided intentions. On the contrary, there is a concerted and very organized effort afoot by several groups across the country to keep the Holocaust out of the museum. For some of them, their desire is for the Holocaust not to be even mentioned.

The inclusion of a gallery specific to the Holocaust will in no way detract from the histories of other human rights violations. In fact, the opposite will be the case; to learn about the Holocaust will allow one to acquire greater insight into other human rights violations. Certainly within the context of the 20th century, the Holocaust is unfortunately the ultimate prototype for the study of human rights violations by virtue of the systematic nature employed by the Nazis and their collaborators to eradicate a people - from political oppression, judicial and economic discrimination to the use of scientific, racial, and cultural theories and arguments which required the mobilization of every institution of Nazi Germany’s political and civil society.

Indeed, the Holocaust has implications for our local history as well. For instance, local survivors not only educate youth on the atrocities of the Holocaust but on the connection to modern-day genocides as well as day-to-day human rights violations. In educational presentations made by Holocaust survivors in Winnipeg, we see connections made between them and young survivors of current conflicts. A recent example was a particularly poignant moment when a 14 year old survivor of a war torn African country intensely related to the horrific experiences of one of our survivors in Buchenwald when he was the same age as this young boy.

Our online petition is now up and running at www.jhcwc.org. You are only required to input your name and the city/town you are located at. No email address is required. Thanks to our talented webmaster, we will be able to identify spam, duplication etc. without asking you to provide us with information that we know some people are not comfortable giving out. Please sign the petition and inform as many people as possible of its existence.

I would also encourage you to participate in the public Roundtables in your community by registering online http://www.humanrightsmuseum.ca/share-your-story/public-roundtables-calendar and then expressing in your words, why there should be a permanent Holocaust gallery in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

We will present the petition to the Content Advisory Committee in January 2010 when the Public Roundtables take place in Winnipeg.

Sincerely,

BELLE MILLO
Chair, Freeman Family Foundation Holocaust Education Centre
Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada
millo@mts.net