On Thursday August 24, I visited the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. The Museum of Tolerance teaches visitors about how the Holocaust came into fruition as well as examples of intolerance throughout American History. It was a profound experience for me because I always knew the Holocaust was a horrifying example human atrocity, but learning about each step in the process towards genocide made it even more so. First, I will describe the tour, and then I will give my reasons for why I think more people should visit the Museum of Tolerance.
The tour at the Museum of Tolerance not only educates you about the Holocaust, but it also gets visitors involved to demonstrate that a single person can resist intolerance. It is a somber tour because you will learn about the state of post-WWI Germany that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and how the Holocaust came to be. You will be given a card that will tell you the story of a child who perished during the Holocaust because Jews of any age where not spared. You will hear and see the Anti-Semitic propaganda used by Hitler and the utter indifference the world showed towards the Jewish people. However, I think the most important lesson I learned was how hatred and bigotry can escalate to genocidal levels. Increasing hatred and bigotry does not happen overnight; it is planted in the hearts and minds of dissatisfied people and worked into a frenzy for years until it is finally unleashed in its deadliest form—genocide.
Due to the systematic and methodical nature of the Holocaust, I believe everyone should visit the Museum of Tolerance if they get the chance. Everyone needs to be educated on the power of intolerance and how it is formed. People have the image that intolerance happens spontaneously and in a short amount of time. That is wrong. Intolerance must build itself up over time because those who are targeted need to be dehumanized to the point that their fellow humans will gladly kill them. People need to be socialized to hate another group to want to see them gone. It all starts by making a certain group a scapegoat for another group’s problems then it builds and manifests as hate crimes and genocide. We need to learn about the pattern of intolerance because intolerant movements such as the Neo-Nazis, the KKK, and other white supremacy groups are alive and gaining traction. We as ordinary people must be able to spot the stages of intolerance and stop it before the intolerance can reach the next stage.
Intolerance is a huge part of human history because we fear those who are different from us, but we can begin to change that by increasing our understanding of the Holocaust. The Holocaust lays out the blueprint for genocide, which started as a small intolerance. We should not write off intolerance as something that will pass because intolerant people will take advantage of those who are indifferent and those who have implicit intolerance. Intolerance is alive within our government and our country. It is up to us to recognize that, to combat it with messages of tolerance, and to never forget about one of the most systematic and most atrocious examples of intolerance.
