Who Owns History Of the Holocaust?
To the Editor: Re ”The Germans Want Their History Back” (Week in Review, Sept. 12): In light of the new Holocaust memorial to be built in Berlin by an American, you quote the author Peter Novick as saying, ”What would we think if the Germans said the Holocaust is a terrible thing, but chose to build a museum in Berlin commemorating the American oppression of blacks?” It might be grotesque, but not in the way Mr. Novick seems to think. After Auschwitz, one would assume that such a museum on German soil would have to exist within the context of genocide as well as the oppression of African peoples by Europeans, and therefore might be as embarrassing to Germans as to Americans. One would also expect such a museum to contain displays on German racial theories of the Nazi era, which made it a crime to mix the races. DAVID H. HIRSCH Providence, R.I., Sept.
