Deb Hart: Holocaust Centre Chair voices concerns with Canterbury museum's World War II display

There's concerns from some that a Canterbury museum's displayed World War II Nazi artefacts without context. 

Geraldine’s Military Museum showcases tanks and machinery of war, alongside a Nazi flag and mannequins wearing the uniforms of Hitler’s elite bodyguard.

It welcomes visitors to partake in an Nazi re-enactment - to display 'both sides' the war. 

Holocaust Centre Chair Deb Hart says without much context, it's harmful to uninformed people. 

"You do have an obligation to help people understand what it is that they are looking at. Otherwise, you risk glorifying something that was terrible in our history."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now there is upset at a Nazi display at a
museum in Canterbury. The display is at the Military Museum
in Geraldine and it features uniforms and equipment from the
first SS Panzer Division in World War Two. Deb Heart
is chair of the Holocaust Center. High deb Hi, what
is your concern here? What's your problem with this?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well, our concern is basically one of context. What we
understand is that the Geraldine Military Museum has a display
of a Nazi unit that was not just any old
military unit. It was the armed embodiment of Nazi ideology.

(00:39):
It was the elite, an original unit of the waft
in SS, the personal bodyguard of Adolf Hitler. It evolved
into one of Nazi Germany's most infamous and brutal fighting formation,
formations implicated in mass murders, the Holocaust ascas of of

(01:02):
POW's and the like. And the museum seems to have
put this display up with very little context. Whatsoever do
we need context?

Speaker 1 (01:13):
I mean, the vast, vast, vast majority of us know
Nazis are bad. What other context do you need?

Speaker 2 (01:22):
I wish that were so, but many of us don't
know that at alls. Lots of people in it, particularly
in younger generations don't know this history. And all museums,
no matter whether they're a little museum in Geraldine or
they're a big national museum, have a responsibility to tell

(01:48):
the stories and give the context. And it really isn't
all that difficult to do so. And this display actually
offers for people to join a reenactment of the waffansis.
You know, it's it's hard to believe what those re

(02:10):
enactments would be. I mean, would they be well, you know,
would they be mass executions or burning homes or maybe
the wormholt To massacre where this very division executed eighty
unarmed British and French POWs. You know, maybe it's you know,

(02:31):
really you do have an obligation to help people understand
what it is that they are looking at. Otherwise you
risk glorifying something that you know it was really terrible
in our history.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Have you read Douglas Murray's latest book on Democracies and
death Cults?

Speaker 2 (02:55):
I've I've read parts of it. It's on my reading list.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
For highly recommend this Christmas New Year's break talk about
ruining your sumer though, I'll tell you what I read it, right,
and the premise in the book, he tries to understand
why because he's looking at Hamas and he's trying to
understand why it is that we're seeing this rising anti
semitism in modern times and why people are so openly
hating on Jews all over again. I don't think actually,

(03:20):
at the end of it, I don't think he adequately
explains it. I'm interested, do you do you have an
explanation for why this is happening?

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well, anti Semitism is the longest hatred and it morphs
into different forms over time, and what we are seeing
at the moment is, you know, really morphing yet again.
And so we are seeing a startling rise and anti Semitism.

(03:52):
And if I can pivot back to this display, it
really is pretty unhelpful because you know, we don't learn
anything from history by by distorting it.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Very good point, Dev, Thanks very much. Appreciate a deb
Heart Holocaust Center Chair. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
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