Holocaust Museum LA invited Kanye West to a private tour. Now it’s target of antisemitic attacks
A private tour of the Smithsonian’s Holocaust Memorial Museum was organized by its own staff, with only the two guests invited. (Erika Johnsen/Winnipeg Free Press)
The museum, which focuses on the Nazi government’s efforts to destroy the Jewish people, is the focus of attacks in Winnipeg which call Jews and Judaism into question.
“They are taking out people like me who are Jewish,” Winnipegger Erika Johnsen said.
Johnsen, who is Jewish, is one of two guests who were invited to join the tour on Friday.
“I’m really outraged, appalled and shocked,” Johnsen said, adding that she knows what the museum is and what it represents.
“It’s a place where the Nazis did their best to physically, financially and emotionally destroy the Jewish people,” she said.
“It’s not just about the Holocaust but it’s about who’s history affects our country today.”
After the tour, she and other friends gathered in the museum’s cafe, surrounded by posters of smiling children. Johnsen said she was surprised by what she saw, but said she has faith in the museum’s mission.
The museum’s website features a photo gallery with photos, quotes and messages about the Holocaust that are posted by visitors.
The same museum website features a list of places to visit in Los Angeles that are memorials to the Holocaust.
One of the museums listed is the Getty Research Institute, a museum in Los Angeles that includes the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Holocaust Museum and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
The website states:
The Getty Research Institute at Los Angeles, California, is the world’s largest and most eclectic collection of art, archaeological artifacts, and natural history, devoted to human-source artifacts and the relationships between humans and nature.
“I will say that the museum takes a very broad viewpoint of the Holocaust, including the Nazi genocide,” said Chris Fuhr, the museum’s deputy director.
“I think people will get a better understanding of the Holocaust if we view it as a global phenomenon, and it’s not a single event that affected one place. It’s not a unique event that happened to a particular people.”
The museum, she said, is “a very inclusive place. It’s not a white supremacist museum.”
