U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibition to open April 25 at Dean B. Ellis Library at Arkansas State
“Nazism is applied biology.” — Rudolf Hess, Deputy to Adolf Hitler
JONESBORO, Ark. — The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s traveling exhibition, “Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race,” will premiere on Thursday, April 25, at the Dean B. Ellis Library at Arkansas State University. The exhibit will run through June 16.
“Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race” examines how the Nazi leadership, in collaboration with individuals in professions traditionally charged with healing and the public good, used science to help legitimize persecution, murder and, ultimately, genocide.
“Deadly Medicine explores the Holocaust’s roots in then-contemporary scientific and pseudo-scientific thought,” explains exhibition curator Susan Bachrach. “At the same time, it touches on complex ethical issues we face today, such as how societies acquire and use scientific knowledge and how they balance the rights of the individual with the needs of the larger community. We are pleased to be bringing this important exhibition to the United Nations and an international audience.”
The Nazi regime was founded upon the conviction that “inferior” races and individuals had to be eliminated from German society so that the fittest “Aryans” could thrive. The Nazi state fully committed itself to implementing a uniquely racist and anti-Semitic variation of eugenics to “scientifically” build what it considered to be a “superior race.”
By the end of World War II, six million Jews had been murdered. Millions of others also became victims of persecution and murder through Nazi “racial hygiene” programs designed to cleanse Germany of “biological threats” to the nation’s “health,” including “foreign-blooded” Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), persons diagnosed as “hereditarily ill,” and homosexuals. In German-occupied territories, Poles and others belonging to ethnic groups deemed “inferior” were also murdered.
A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum inspires citizens and leaders to confront hatred, promote human dignity and prevent genocide. Its far-reaching educational programs and global impact are made possible by the generosity of donors nationwide through legacy and annual giving.
For more information, visit www.ushmm.org. For more information on the exhibition, contact April Sheppard at (870) 972-2766 or asheppard@astate.edu. To view the online version of the exhibition, visit http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/deadlymedicine/.
