More on the passive, aggressive, monopoly of the Holocaust.
Wall Street Journal, October 8, 2003, p.1, Column 4
Should a Museum Look as Disturbing As What It Portrays?
Farmington Hills, Mich.-Head south on Orchard Lake Road, one of the suburban Detroit's busiest streets, and on your right, you'll pass a strip mall, a bank, a Chinese restaurant and what appears to be a Nazi concentration camp.
Actually, it is a new Holocaust museum that resembles a death camp, and it has forced this community to consider hard questions about the purpose of memorials and the responsibilities of architecture.
Some residents simply think it's ugly. Some are grateful that it will serve as a vivid reminder of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis. And some are pained by personal heart-aches invoked by the building's design.
The Detroit museum was founded in 1984 in a much smaller, nondescript building attached to the local Jewish Community Center. To expand and relocate the museum Rabbi Rosenzveig has raised about half of the 17 million cost and is working on the rest. Loans have made it possible to finish work on the museum and its exhibits. He also plans to ask for state funding."
No mention on the tax-free status of the property, the tax-deductible donations to the museum, and the public's cost in maintenance.
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