The Imperial War Museum is under fire for refusing to correct a glaring error in its Holocaust exhibit, after experts condemned its description of the Nuremberg Laws as “nonsense” and “reprehensible.”
A caption in the museum claims that under the 1935 laws, “a person was defined as Jewish based on how many observant Jewish grandparents they had.” In reality, the antisemitic legislation made no mention of religious observance. It designated anyone with three or four Jewish grandparents as Jewish, regardless of personal practice, and classified those with one or two as Mischlinge (mixed race). The laws stripped Jews of German citizenship and banned them from marrying or having relations with ethnic Germans.
A retired New York academic who spotted the error during a visit told The Guardian that while the museum’s exhibits were otherwise “extraordinarily impressive,” this misrepresentation “must be changed.” “It disregards the vast majority of the Jewish population who are not observant,” she said. “The Nazis aimed to eradicate all Jews, observant or not. To imply otherwise is misleading and reprehensible.”
Holocaust experts backed her complaint. Historian Christopher Browning, a key witness in the David Irving libel trial, explained that what mattered to the Nazis was whether a grandparent’s birth had been registered with a Jewish community. “The grandparent could later even have converted to Christianity, but if the grandparent had been registered as Jewish at birth, that for the Nazis was the deciding factor.”
Timothy Snyder, an authority on Nazi crimes, said bluntly: “It did not matter whether the grandparents were observant … No one was saved from persecution by having grandparents who were not observant.” He added that the caption’s wording creates a false impression that secular Jews might have been spared while religious Jews were targeted. “This is nonsense,” Snyder said.
Dr. Robin Douglas of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism echoed the criticism, saying the museum’s text wrongly suggested that Nazi criteria depended on “a piously observant Jew in adult life” rather than on whether Jewish ancestry was recorded at birth. “The fact that the Nazis ultimately fell back on a religiously-determined criterion of Jewishness exposes the emptiness of their supposedly scientific ideas,” he said.
Despite repeated appeals, Imperial War Museum director general Caro Howell defended the caption in an email, saying the institution would “stand by the curatorial choices that we have made and that our expert advisers have reviewed.” She warned that changing text whenever “interpretative nuance” was raised would undermine the museum’s integrity.
When the academic forwarded expert testimony to the museum, Howell cut off correspondence, writing that the debate “risks sowing division among people who really should pull together.”
A museum spokesperson later insisted the caption had been “rigorously reviewed and edited by IWM’s curators, a number of leading international scholars and members of Jewish communities.” They added that “it is inevitable that questions of interpretation will be raised.”
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11 Responses
My friends,
If we constantly categorize ourselves into smaller and smaller groups, at some point we lost the right to call ourselves an entity deserving of rights for that group. If we can’t care for each other, irrespective of our differences, we lose the right to ask the rest of the world to treat us as one group. If we say to ourselves in our hearts that we ache less for the hostages because “why were they worshiping Buddha on Shabbat” we can’t ask other world to care because we are just a random group of unrelated humans. If we only associate with Jews from Syria and then only from the town of Chaleb but other are not my flesh then we don’t matter as a group. If a bucharian Jew from Tashkent and a Hungarian Jew who is satmar don’t care for one another like brothers we don’t deserve to be a people. We are one blood. Stop with this.
Most of those who were killed by the nazis were in fact non religious. All the secular museums love to put up an image that it was the religious Jews that were the victims. If you study the history that led up to the holocaust you will see the massive assimilation and spread of the reform movement throughout Europe. In Berlin fifty per cent intermarriage rate. In so called religious Poland even among the chassidim the girls were falling away to polish culture as there were no religious girl schools. In Budepest the reform were very powerful. When Sara Schneir came along and started religious girls schools she was shocked how girls opted to secular culture. She made a revolution even though not all Gedolim backed her. People ask why today there is no holocaust as among intermarriage in reform and secular circles it’s as high as 70 percent. The answer is today’s secular youth are not against religion. They are just ignorant. Today America is different as you have groups like Chabad Lubavitch,Aish HaTorah and others doing massive kiruv work. In Europe each Jewish community lived for themselves. They believe in live and let live. Neighborhoods are changing from non observant to observant. I recall Boro park had Jewish owned stores open on shabbos. Religious Jews started protests outside the stores. Slowly they closed. In Europe pre holocaust there was no such thing. The so called anti semitism today for the most part is happening on colleges where young Jews are assimilating and intermarrying on a high level. Anti semitism makes an imaginary wall to keep Jews from disappearing. Today Chabad houses on campuses are seeing a return like never before. We as religious Jews as well cannot rest in our growth in Torah. We must increase our levels no matter who we are. Life is short and there is so much to do. Today we have available on our fingertips Torah anytime, Eli Stefansky and tons of seforim in all languages from Arts scroll to oz vehodor. No excuses.
Flatbush: You are making gross generalizations. As for Hungary: The Orthodox were very strong there and the rabbinical organizations and yeshiva networks were second-to-none. Yes, there was Reform as well as the Status Quo movement, but Torah-true Judaism was more robust in Hungary than anywhere else in Europe.
Ilovetorah, most bucharian Jews are safek yidden
Gaslighting.
Howell, the museum director warned “that changing text whenever “interpretative nuance” is raised would undermine the museum’s integrity.”
The director then “cut off correspondence… because debate “risks sowing division among people who really should pull together.” ”
“INTERPRETIVE NUANCE”? “SHOULD PULL TOGETHER”? “Museum integrity”? This is gaslighting! Rings like verbal abusive and control. There is no “nuance” nor interpretation needed on this subject. We have seen photographic proof since we were young. It is historical fact. For the famous IWM to be asserting this is dangerous. We can neither afford, nor allow, the Holocaust to become a victim of historical revision!
NOTE: I know a American-born woman, a simple teacher, who was able to influence the USHMM (DC) to exhibit an important subject of Holocaust history. Experts could not impress upon them what she could. Lesson learned?
The title is incorrect
Ti YWN: The title is incorrect ! Please be more responsible
Ari Knobler: My mother was from Hungary and was sole survivor of her family after being in Auswitz. I asked her was everyone in her town of Ratzferd religious and shomer shabbos. No she said. There was religious and non religious Jews. Did anyone try to stop stores from opening on Shabbos. No she said. Everyone lived their own lives. This is where the problem is. As Jews we are responsible to reach out to all Jews and make them observant. American Orthodox Jews are doing that in a large scale compared to pre war Europe. The same is in israel. Groups like Arachim,Aish,Amnon Yitzchak,Eli Stefansky etc are very successful. Slowly the tide is changing. Religious Jews are expanding while the secular are shrinking.
Howell, the museum director warned “that changing text whenever “interpretative nuance” is raised would undermine the museum’s integrity.”
The director then “cut off correspondence… because debate “risks sowing division among people who really should pull together.” ”
“INTERPRETIVE NUANCE”? “SHOULD PULL TOGETHER”? “Museum integrity”? This is gaslighting! Rings like verbal abusive and control. There is no “nuance” nor interpretation needed on this subject. We have seen photographic proof since we were young. It is historical fact. For the famous IWM to be asserting this is dangerous. We can neither afford, nor allow, the Holocaust to become a victim of historical revision!
NOTE: I know a American-born woman, a simple teacher, who was able to influence the USHMM (DC) to exhibit an important subject of Holocaust history. Experts could not impress upon them what my mother could. Lesson learned?
Flatbush yid: Perhaps we are related as my Hungarian side comes from that area. With all due respect to your beloved mother (please do not misinterpret my rejoinder as a slight against her, chas ve-chalila), the history of Újfehértó (Ratzfert) has been misremembered. Just prior to World War II, Újfehértó had a population of 16,000. There were 2,500 Jews (about 400 families). There were two shuls, one of which was Chassidic. At the time, Chassidic Jews made up about 80% of the total Jewish population. It was the home of the famous Reb Hershele of Ratzfert. Rabbi Shalom Eliezer Halberstam of Ratzfert (1862 – 1944) was the sixth son of Rabbi Chaim of Sanz, founder of the Sanz dynasty, and was the founder of the Ratzfert dynasty. He perished in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The actual subject of the article is how the IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM DEFINED THE NUREMBERG LAWS specifically regarding the definition of a Jew.
It was the IWM that claimed “Jew” was defined by their “Jewish observance” in contrast to being non observant. Expert historians disagree with the museum saying that a Jew is one who “registered” as a Jew in a communal registry (all births were recorded). The Museum claimed this to be “interpretive nuance” and refused further discussion by “cutting off communication”. This behavior demonstrates a form of historical revisionism.
The historian Snyder said:
“It did not matter whether the grandparents were observant … No one was saved from persecution by having grandparents who were not observant.”
The subject of the article is NOT how Jews define themselves, nor kiruv today.