Day 10: Museums and Thoughts

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Another museum day: the Topography of Terror and the Berlin Wall Memorial Museum. Basically, it made every thing in my body and mind hurt with questions how things happen and why we don't learn from our mistakes. One exhibit within the Topography of Terror examined those who were prosecuted for their war crimes. Less than 6% of those investigated for war crimes were prosecuted. Out of those prosecuted very few were found guilty and almost none served full sentences. Shelby and I spent a good chunk of time discussing whether you would feel better seeing your abuser go through the process and found innocent or released early or not have them prosecuted at all. On the one hand, you were able to face you accuser and the system fails you, but the system fails you twice...the initial regime and then the re-establishment. But if they are not prosecuted, it is like they did nothing wrong to begin with. The museum did a great job explaining how Germans were able to get swept away in the Nazi regime. After years of embarrassment after WWI, the Nazi brought ideas of pride, increased employment, vacations, slight wage growth, public admonishment for those who spoke against the government. Those who did disagree with Master Race policies often set them aside as thoughts of everything else is going good, I can overlook this. How often even today, we get caught up in the good for us mentality at the expense for others. Easy example is Minnesota education. We have statistically one of the best educations in the country in terms of ACT scores and graduation, but also have the largest inequality gap in the nation. Good for some at the expense of others. We have an economy that is growing and someone being tough on negotiation with other nations, but we are also trying to limit the definition of refugee status. The museum talked about how after Kristallnacht British, France, the United States all spoke out against the event and regime, but none chose to expand their immigration limits and even made it more difficult to come to the these countries. We talked about never again and then we divided Germany, used media to negatively portray the other side. We see a continued upswing in nationalistic tendencies and going divide between people in all terms: political, religious, race, gender.

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Photos

Cards of those prosecuted after the war
All flush against the wall were found innocent, slightly raised are those convicted, fully raised (4) those who served full sentences.