Law Enforcement and the Holocaust.

Law enforcement agencies in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area recently have begun a training program drawing upon the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as a resource to explore a variety of issues relevant to law enforcement today. (1) This program, cosponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, has provided law enforcement officers with a unique opportunity to witness the dangers and horrors that can occur when law enforcement abdicates its role as a protector of citizens' liberties and rights and, ultimately, becomes a tool of a government involved in a systematic genocidal program. As a result of the success of this program, the museum also has instituted other educational programs for law enforcement officers, such as traveling exhibits from the museum that move to various cities within the United States. (2)

History

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, chartered by a unanimous Act of Congress in 1980 and opened in 1993, is America's national institution for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history. The public's response to and interest in the museum, which annually hosts over 2 million visitors to its permanent exhibits in Washington, D.C., has surpassed the expectations of those involved in its planning.

The museum's collaboration with law enforcement began in 1999 when the chief of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department began using the museum as a learning resource and tool for his agency. Since then, many Washington, D.C.-area law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have incorporated a tour of the museum as a regular part of recruit training. In addition, law enforcement in-service training programs and the FBI National Academy have integrated tours and subsequent discussions about the Holocaust into ethics and other general police training.

The permanent exhibit at the museum provides a unique opportunity to experience images and artifacts dating from the period 1933 to 1945. The museum's exhibits include displays and videos on the Nazi's rise to power; Nazi programs and policies to control and manipulate the German people; Nazi schemes to create a master race; Nazi persecution of Jews, Romas (Gypsies), Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and political opponents; and the "Final Solution" (the systematic extermination of Jews in Nazi-controlled territory). Also, the museum's displays and videos provide insight into individual stories of Holocaust victims and rescuers and events at the end of World War II in Europe,

such as the Nuremberg trials of accused Nazi war criminals.

Contemporary Implications

Material prepared by the museum staff and distributed to law enforcement officers provides interesting information concerning the state of law enforcement in Germany prior to the Nazi assumption of power and the eventual involvement of German police in Nazi programs and policies. The material also includes explanations on how the Nazis assumed control of local and state police and integrated them into the Nazi's plans to control all aspects of German society.

Because Nazi programs were so extensive, they necessarily involved the control and use of German law enforcement authorities. However, it is often noted during tours that individuals from all professions in Germany played a role in supporting and furthering Nazi goals, including teachers, doctors, and judges. For example, doctors and scientists helped eliminate undesirables in society through euthanasia. This primarily involved killing individuals with mental and physical handicaps. Also, scientists and researchers assisted in programs to create a master race through the use of eugenics and the promotion of selective breeding.

Because Nazi programs were carried out by a modem technologically advanced society, it is interesting to compare and contrast the activities of German law enforcement in the 1930s and 1940s and challenges facing American law enforcement officials today. For instance, the German police suffered from budgetary restraints during the Weimar Republic, the government prior to the Nazi assumption of power. Funding was cut for hiring, training, promotions, and raises, and the police had little money for such items as new forensic equipment and firearms.

The economic distress of the Weimar Republic contributed to a rapid increase in crime and organized criminal activity. Restrictions on law enforcement authority frustrated the police. The courts dismissed some criminal cases because the police failed to safeguard the rights of the accused. The emergence of a free press highly critical of police operations exacerbated these failures. Public criticism fostered a siege mentality among the police, who resented that the public blamed them when constitutional restraints and lack of funding tied their hands. These challenges and obstacles facing the police in the Weimar Republic may seem comparable to similar ones facing police today in the United States.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, many police remained skeptical of the Nazis because the Nazis previously had been investigated and jailed as agitators by the government. Nevertheless, Hitler posed as a champion of law and order and many police looked forward to the extension of police power promised by a strong, centralized state. Indeed, the Nazis did extend police power and alleviated many of the frustrations the police experienced in the Weimar Republic. The parallels between the plight of police in the Weimar Republic and issues facing police today lends particular relevance to the actions of German police after the Nazis assumed power. The Nazis eventually incorporated the professional police into Nazi programs to repress political opposition and to discriminate against groups, such as the Jews.

The material distributed to law enforcement officers visiting the museum includes descriptions of various German police practices after the Nazi assumption of power. One practice, called "preventative police arrest, was used against repeat criminal violators, persons whose antisocial behavior constituted a public danger, and persons who refused to identify or falsely identified themselves in an attempt to hide previous criminal acts. Individuals under "preventative police arrest" had no lawyer and no trial. They could be interned directly in concentration camps for a period determined by police.

In addition, "protective detention" or protective custody, allowed the police to indefinitely incarcerate people without specific charges and bring to trial

persons deemed to be potentially dangerous to the security of Nazi Germany. Some law enforcement officials see comparisons between these practices and aggressive law enforcement tactics used today, such as zero tolerance policies targeted toward gangs or vagrants. In addition, many individuals may see parallels to events in U.S. history, such as the U.S. government's internment of Americans of Japanese ethnic origin during World War II or other national security measures directed at various ethnic groups in the United States during periods of international conflict.

The Holocaust Memorial Museum also serves as a learning tool to help understand the role the United States plays today in helping to maintain democracy and to preserve human rights around the world. A series of computer programs and other displays in the museum explore American responses to events in Germany from 1933 to 1945. American newspapers from this period described the increasing deprivation of civil rights experienced by Jews. For example, Kristalnacht (night of broken glass), which included the looting and burning of Jewish synagogues and businesses in 1938 by the Nazis, appeared on the front pages of American newspapers at that time.

These exhibits indicate that many people in the United States were aware that the Nazis increasingly were depriving the Jews of their civil rights. The failure of the United States and other countries to intervene in Germany in 1938 serves as an example of what can happen when countries neglect to take action against other countries involved in serious violations of basic human rights. These exhibits may assist in understanding why the United States has assumed the role of "the police officer of the world."

The museum's exhibits also portray the refusal of the U.S. government to increase immigration quotas during the period 1933 to 1945. This includes a display concerning the tragic voyage of the passenger ship Saint Louis, which sailed from Europe to Cuba with almost 1,000 Jewish passengers seeking refuge from Nazi Germany. Ultimately, Cuba refused to allow the ship's passengers to enter. Then, the ship sailed close to Miami, but the U.S. Coast Guard enforced U.S. policy by preventing anyone from jumping off the ship to freedom or allowing the ship to dock in the United States. Forced to sail back to Europe, many of the passengers subsequently died in the Holocaust. Law enforcement can use these exhibits to explore current U.S. immigration policies with respect to the immigration of individuals fleeing political, religious, or ethnic repression in other countries.

Moral Courage

Through the exhibits and stories of those involved in the events in Germany from l933 to 1945, visitors to the museum learn that individuals in Germany, including law enforcement officials, reacted in a variety of ways. Commonly, police and other Germans either actively or passively participated and supported Nazi policies. However, the museum also portrays many stories of moral courage.

The museum distributes short biographies of three law enforcement officials, which typify individual responses to Nazi policies. Two of the biographies portray the majority of law enforcement officers who went along with the Nazi policies. One officer played a role in the "Final Solution" and the T4 medical killing program (euthanasia of individuals with handicaps). The other commanded mobile killing units responsible for the deaths of over 45,000 people.

However, the biography of Swiss law enforcement officer, Paul Ernst Grueninger describes how he defied Swiss law concerning the immigration of Jews into Switzerland by falsifying reports and backdating passport stamps. He allowed 2,000 to 4,000 people to enter Switzerland in violation of Swiss law. As a result, Grueninger saved the lives of many of the Jews he allowed to illegally immigrate into Switzerland.

Grueninger was a 20-year veteran of Swiss government service. Nevertheless, because of his violation of Swiss law, Grueninger was prosecuted, convicted, and dismissed from his job. He lost his pension and other government benefits as well. The difficult ethical and moral dilemma posed by Grueninger' s story includes the issue of whether laws or lawful and constitutional orders ever should be violated for a higher moral purpose.

Many of the exhibits in the museum detail individual stories of Holocaust rescuers and victims. These include exhibits about such people as Oscar Schindler, Raoul Wallenberg, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Anne Frank. Clearly, each participant in the events surrounding the Nazi rise to power, World War II, and the Holocaust faced a unique set of moral and ethical challenges. In many instances, such as with Paul Ernst Grueninger, decades passed before the public recognized and celebrated the moral courage of rescuers.

After Grueninger's conviction and dismissal from Swiss government service in 1939, he had difficulty finding employment and worked various odd jobs for the rest of his life. The Yad Vashem Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem recognized him as "Righteous Among the Nations" in 1971, and he died in 1972. A court in Switzerland reviewed and overturned Grueninger's conviction in 1995.

Conclusion

Several displays and films at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum show scenes American soldiers encountered as they stumbled upon some of the concentration and death camps during the liberation of Europe from Nazi control. These images remind museum visitors of U.S. soldiers' heroism, but also serve as a testament to the horror of the Holocaust. Many visitors leave with a renewed resolve that nothing like this ever will be allowed to occur again.

In an April 2, 2000, speech, the chief of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department summarized one of the overriding questions that should haunt any law enforcement officer who visits the museum: "Where were the police? Where were the police when libraries were being looted and books burned? When Jewish businesses were being illegally targeted? When people were being classified and publicly harassed and, ultimately, imprisoned and slaughtered? Where were the police?"

A visit to the museum raises many questions for today's law enforcement officer. Officers who witness the inhumanity displayed in graphic and vivid detail in the museum's exhibits leave with a deepened commitment to continually question the moral quality of their policing. However, many law enforcement officers also leave realizing that the question, "What would I have done?" is not a simple or easy one to answer. Ultimately, after visiting the museum, law enforcement officers have a deeper understanding and insight into law enforcement's role in society, which must include a duty to prevent and detect crime, as well as an uncompromising commitment to protect citizens' human dignity and rights.

Special Agent McCormack serves in the Ethics Unit at the FBI Academy.

Endnotes

(1.) Material and information contained in this article were provided by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. This includes written material prepared by museum historians, which is distributed to law enforcement visitors, material on display at the museum's permanent exhibit in Washington, DC, and material from the museum's Web site at http://www.ushmm.org.

(2.) For further information on the traveling exhibits and other educational programs, law enforcement officials may contact Andres Abril at the museum in Washington, DC, telephone number 202-488-0420.