›-1

,1 when Elie Wiesel chastised President
:Clinton about U.S. inaction in the
face of "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia.
Critics, who want the museum to
be strictly a memorial to Jewish vic-
tims, reject that function, but a major-
ity of Holocaust scholars and many
Jewish leaders say that the most
important kind of remembrance is
that which uses the martyrdom of the
• Jewish victims to help prevent new
• instances of mass killing.
Museum officials here and most
Holocaust scholars try to draw a pre-
carious balance.
"We believe the Holocaust is not
just a big, bad thing that happened •
that's still in the same genre as other
examples of genocide, but something
that breaks the mold of other geno-
cides," said Emory University profes-
sor Deborah Lipstadt, who also serves
on the Holocaust Council.
But that uniqueness, she said, does-
n't diminish the desire of many who
study and memorialize the Holocaust
to draw connections to today's events
in an effort to change the future as
well as depict the past.
The task for Holocaust scholars, she
• said, is to find what in the Holocaust is
universal and applicable to other situa-
tions and use it to teach vital lessons,
while at the same time building a
incontrovertible historical record of
those elements that made the Holo-
caust a distinctly Jewish event.
There's one more aspect to the
debate over universalism.
Early Holocaust scholars worked
hard to make their budding academic
discipline not just a place for Jews.
They welcomed non-Jewish writers
and researchers — like John Roth —
who felt driven to devote their lives to
the study of the Holocaust. Without
broadening the base of Holocaust
scholarship, they worried, the nascent
field would remain scholarly ghetto.
But some critics worry that the
infusion of non-Jews will inevitably
dilute the special Jewish character of
that history.
That's sheer prejudice, most Holo-
caust scholars believe, and it can only
weaken the standing of Holocaust
studies as a legitimate discipline.
Whose Holocaust is it? The over-
whelming majority of Holocaust
scholars believe that if we refuse to
share it and use it to illuminate today's
events, we will cheapen remembrance
and cheat the victims out of their
chance to give the world a great gift.
The memory is ours, but the lesson
belongs to everybody. ❑

/-/

$2,000 due at delivery includes $250 security deposit S. plate.

$3,200 due at delivery includes $325 security deposit & plate.

m ut

$2,000 due at delivery includes $325 security deposit & plate.

.\"

A41111111111111.111111111111111.

4

Was $36,945

Now$30 445

Plus tax. title & plate, all rebates to dealer

-

'NOM

.•

GLASSMON GLOSSMOM
OLDSMOBILE
SAROB

On Telegraph at the
Tel-12 Mall, Southfield

354-3300

On Telegraph at the
Tel-12 Mall, Southfield

......................

354-3300

..... ........... ....

Get Results... Advertise in our new Entertainment Section!

6/19
1998

Call The Sales Department (2 48) 354-7123 Ext. 209

41