Memorial committee calls changes to park ‘political’
By Thomas Tracy
Comment
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| If they have anything to say about it, the members of the Holocaust Memorial Committee won’t be lighting a candle for the homosexuals, gypsies and political prisoners also killed by the Nazis. |
Believing that the decision was “politically motivated,” members of the Holocaust Memorial Committee are steadfastly against the city’s plans to place five markers in Holocaust Memorial Park to honor homosexuals, gypsies and political upstarts killed by the Nazis.
In a scathing letter, the Holocaust Memorial Committee said that they are calling on the city and the Parks Department to “reconsider” the proposal and “respect” their group as well as a memorandum of understanding they had hammered out with the city when the Sheepshead Bay park was dedicated in 1997.
The committee and the city have been at odds for over a month ever since the city authorized a proposal by the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Children of Holocaust Survivors to place five markers honoring homosexuals, Roma and Sinti gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the disabled and political prisoners that the Nazis persecuted and killed as they cut a swath of horror through Europe.
The International Association of Lesbian and Gay Children of Holocaust Survivors, run by Rick Landman, has been trying to get the markers in the park for the last 17 years so “visitors would know what happened to other victims of the Nazi era.”
But Committee members said that these victims are already reflected on the base of the memorial, which notes the loss of “the five million other innocent human beings who were also murdered under German rule during World War II.”
To have a marker honor gays, gypsies and others would be redundant, unless it was for a specific person.
It would also go against the Committee’s memorandum of understanding with the city, which stipulates that “only one marker shall be used to honor a specific occurrence” and that the committee “shall participate in making decisions regarding the approval of the inscriptions.”
“In the past, the city’s Parks Department has worked cooperatively with the community and the Holocaust Memorial Committee, but now the city is ignoring its commitments to the very community that has kept the memorial park alive and well maintained all these years,” the committee said in a statement.
Parks Department officials said that the all the marker inscriptions are subject to their final review.
The Committee, they said, reviews the inscriptions and gives advice.
A Parks Department spokesperson said that in this case the inscriptions were reviewed and approved by the senior historian of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Landman’s request for the markers was approved because “it would reinforce the monument’s educational purpose to remind us of the historical circumstances of the Holocaust.”
“You don’t want to forget the fact that all lives are precious and we don’t value any one group any more than others,” Mayor Bloomberg explained at a recent press conference. “Yes, the Jews paid a terrible price, but there were others killed and there’s nothing wrong with memorializing and reminding the next generations going forward of the terrible tragedy that took place and to make sure that they understand discrimination and genocide against any one group invariably leads to genocide among other groups.”
Calls to Committee Director Pauline Bilus for comment were not returned by press time.
The city’s plan has caused a divide among residents and elected officials in the area.
While State Senator Carl Kruger recommended that Landman’s group find another location for the memorials, Assemblymember Steve Cymbrowitz believes that “singling out specific groups for exclusion from Holocaust Memorial Park is the same kind of mind−set that eventually resulted in the Holocaust.”
City Councilmember Michael Nelson says he can see both sides of the argument.
In a scathing letter, the Holocaust Memorial Committee said that they are calling on the city and the Parks Department to “reconsider” the proposal and “respect” their group as well as a memorandum of understanding they had hammered out with the city when the Sheepshead Bay park was dedicated in 1997.
The committee and the city have been at odds for over a month ever since the city authorized a proposal by the International Association of Lesbian and Gay Children of Holocaust Survivors to place five markers honoring homosexuals, Roma and Sinti gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the disabled and political prisoners that the Nazis persecuted and killed as they cut a swath of horror through Europe.
The International Association of Lesbian and Gay Children of Holocaust Survivors, run by Rick Landman, has been trying to get the markers in the park for the last 17 years so “visitors would know what happened to other victims of the Nazi era.”
But Committee members said that these victims are already reflected on the base of the memorial, which notes the loss of “the five million other innocent human beings who were also murdered under German rule during World War II.”
To have a marker honor gays, gypsies and others would be redundant, unless it was for a specific person.
It would also go against the Committee’s memorandum of understanding with the city, which stipulates that “only one marker shall be used to honor a specific occurrence” and that the committee “shall participate in making decisions regarding the approval of the inscriptions.”
“In the past, the city’s Parks Department has worked cooperatively with the community and the Holocaust Memorial Committee, but now the city is ignoring its commitments to the very community that has kept the memorial park alive and well maintained all these years,” the committee said in a statement.
Parks Department officials said that the all the marker inscriptions are subject to their final review.
The Committee, they said, reviews the inscriptions and gives advice.
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Landman’s request for the markers was approved because “it would reinforce the monument’s educational purpose to remind us of the historical circumstances of the Holocaust.”
“You don’t want to forget the fact that all lives are precious and we don’t value any one group any more than others,” Mayor Bloomberg explained at a recent press conference. “Yes, the Jews paid a terrible price, but there were others killed and there’s nothing wrong with memorializing and reminding the next generations going forward of the terrible tragedy that took place and to make sure that they understand discrimination and genocide against any one group invariably leads to genocide among other groups.”
Calls to Committee Director Pauline Bilus for comment were not returned by press time.
The city’s plan has caused a divide among residents and elected officials in the area.
While State Senator Carl Kruger recommended that Landman’s group find another location for the memorials, Assemblymember Steve Cymbrowitz believes that “singling out specific groups for exclusion from Holocaust Memorial Park is the same kind of mind−set that eventually resulted in the Holocaust.”
City Councilmember Michael Nelson says he can see both sides of the argument.
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Jerry Jones wrote on Jun 25, 2009 10:10 PM:
The WatchTower Society teaches its own version of "replacement theology", which says that GOD rejected the Jews as His "chosen people", and replaced them with today's "Jehovah's Witnesses". In fact, the title "Jehovah's Witnesses" was originally applied to the Jewish people by the Prophet Isaiah, and is even quoted on the wall at the entrance to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.
The WatchTower Society, in calling its own members "Jehovah's Witnesses" is attempting to steal that designation away from the Jewish people. The WatchTower Society teaches that all of the Bible's promises of restoration for the Jewish people now belong to the followers of the WatchTower Cult.
There were only approximately 6000 Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany during the 1930s-40s. While many of those 6000 German JWs were repeatedly arrested during the 1930s and 1940s, only a fraction were jailed or imprisoned for any significant length of time, or sent to concentration camps. Only about 200-300 German JWs lost their lives, and the majority of those died from any number of causes other than having been executed. Approximately 1000 JWs from other European countries lost their lives while incarcerated by the Nazis.
During that same time period, there were more Jehovah's Witnesses arrested and jailed in the United States than in Germany. In fact, from 1941 until 1945, approximately 4500 American Jehovah's Witnesses "elected" to go to prison rather than serve in the U.S. Military and go fight against the Nazis who were committing atrocities.
Approximately 3000 of those 4500 American JWs were even offered "conscientious objector" status, in which they were offered "non-combatant" work as a substitute, but 99% of those JWs refused to even help that much. "