Posted by Bill Sanderson on Oct 23, 2019
On October 23rd Mary Pat Higgins, president of the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, spoke to the club about the museum's new home. As she described the Holocaust Wing it brought to mind the words of George Santayana that "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
On October 23rd Mary Pat Higgins, president of the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum, spoke to the club about the museum's new home. As she described the Holocaust Wing it brought to mind the words of George Santayana that "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The leader of the Nazi Party, Adolph Hitler,was viewed by many as a buffoon but the nascent party soon began printing a newspaper devoted to demonizing Jews and branding any anti-Nazi stories in major German newspapers as being false. Exploiting anti-Semitism and a fear of the troubled economic times Hitler marginalized Jewish Germans,stripped them of their citizenship and ultimately oversaw the murder of 6 million European Jews. A number of survivors from Nazi concentration camps established the Holocaust Museum in Dallas in 1984.
 
The new museum includes a Human Rights wing with the goal of combating hatred and indifference in our current world. Prominently displayed is the UN's "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" adopted in 1948. The exhibits encourage individuals from middle school age and older to seek  justice for all peoples. One of the more interesting sections promotes UP-standers- those who stand up for the rights of others as distinguished from those who are only silent observers. The emphases in this wing provide a sense of optimism for a future world that can be better for all.