Representatives from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum will be in San Diego to discuss warning signs leading up to the Holocaust and how it could have been prevented.
On Dec. 1 at 7 p.m., the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center in La Jolla will host "Witnesses to History: Americans Abroad in Hitler’s Europe,” a discussion about American intellectuals living in Berlin in the 1920s and 30s -- years when the Holocaust could have been stopped. It will include writers such as Dorothy Thompson, W.E.B. Du Bois and Sinclair Lewis.
“When finally I walked into Adolf Hitler’s salon in the Kaiserhof Hotel, I was convinced that I was meeting the future dictator of Germany. In something less than 50 seconds, I was quite sure I was not,” writer Dorothy Thompson wrote in 1932.
Participants will also get a glimpse of rare archival footage from the time. The footage from the museum’s collection shows warning signs of Hitler’s Europe.
“This program is a fascinating look at the mindset of Americans in Europe following the end of World War I and throughout the Roaring Twenties,” said Steven Klappholz, the Museum’s Western Regional Director. “With the onset of the Great Depression and global economic collapse of the 1930s, people’s attitudes were not focused on the political realities in Europe at that time.”
The presentation is free and people can register on the museum’s website. The registration deadline in November 27.
Located in Washington D.C., the Holocaust Museum has welcomed approximately 38 million guests in the 22 years it’s been open.
