For those of you who don’t know, I used to work at the Holocaust Museum in DC (USHMM). To preemptively answer the inevitable next question: no, I am not Jewish. My first MA was in European History with an emphasis on Holocaust history.
In order to work at the Holocaust Museum, I had to become inured to death, depravity, and radicalism. To do so, I accepted it at a very academic level: it was not personal, or present-tense. But then again… I didn’t have to address it in any personal way. I am not a member of a despised minority group. Furthermore, I specialized in history, not modern politics. I suspect that there are others like me who are currently working at the museum. And the shooting surely changed their world-view. Regardless, I truly feel empathy for everyone who works at the museum, because their work just got a lot tougher, a lot more personal, a lot less historical.
P.S.: Did anyone else notice that James von Brunn wrote screeds about blacks and Jews; then proceeded to kill one black man in a Jewish museum? Shockingly lucid action for a crazy man.
P.P.S: And another thing… why is it that all of these guys look so obviously nutty? I mean… if you put von Brunn’s photo in front of me, I’d immediately classify him as either a racist or a child molester. Probably both. I am very hesitant to suggest that you really can judge a book by its cover… but you have to admit that you’d probably grab your kid if this guy offered a piece of candy.
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