Linenthal, end

Edward T. Linenthal details the origins, evolutions, and meanings of America’s Holocaust Museum in his work Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum. In the second half of the book Linenthal focuses on the permanent exhibit, but one of his main goals is the idea of the limitations of the Holocaust memory integrated into the institute. The book elaborates on the difficulties faced throughout the construction of the exhibit, the dichotomy of revelation and concealment, commemoration and revenge. Linenthal portrays the true magnitude of the undertaking, having to attempt to display the inhumanity of the Holocaust, pick who was and who was not involved in the incident, and, truly difficult, lay out the blueprint for American public memory of the most ghastly event of the 20th century.
The council members had to walk the fine line between education and commemoration and the revulsion of the American public. This was especially important due to the sensitive location on the hallowed grounds of memory, the Washington Mall. As a repository for American memory of the Holocaust it was vital that people desire to come and try to understand the event, leaving with questions not qualms. These are a sampling of the boundaries of memory accepted or forced on the museum by survivors, historians, and politicians throughout the construction of this exhibit.
Despite these emotions Linenthal was impressively impartial. He was certainly sympathetic but not entirely acquiescent, questioning details such as the failure of the U.S. to bomb the death camps. The Holocaust Museum felt the lives that may have been saved outweighed the deaths involved in the bombing. Linenthal objects, it was not feasible, there was little to no intelligence, a small likelihood of success, and little chance of actually preventing death. If the Nazis were determined to murder people they would find a way other than the gas chambers. As a professor of religious studies, Linenthal does an impressive job of separating the sacred and the secular. An event of this depth tends to engender spiritual language and attitudes, but Linenthal manages to remain somewhat neutral.
As a whole, Preserving Memory is a powerful work about the limits of the memory of the Holocaust and how it is to be commemorated in America. Linenthal walks a difficult tightrope between impartiality and the gut-wrenching emotionality of the event. Not jut about the physical displays in the Holocaust Museum, the second half of the work is about the construction of how the Holocaust will be remembered by the American people and uses of that memory. Not just about the definition of the Holocaust, but who and what objects are empowered to define this terrible event.