Its interesting that you bring up the issue of the House
          historian, who was fired over a comment about a curriculum
          which dealt with holocausts, or genocidal programs of mass
          extermination. I believe that the curriculum dealt with
          Armenia, Hitler's Germany, and Stalin's Ukraine (?). She
          thought that the curriculum should have represented the
          viewpoints of Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan, though she
          acknowledged that these viewpoints were "unpopular" or some
          word to that effect.
 
          As I was thinking and posting (not necessarily in that
          order) about the Enola Gay exhibit, I was wondering about
          the difference between thinking that the Japanese Militarist
          point of view should be represented in the exhibit, and the
          opinion that got Dr. Jeffrey fired from the House historian
          job. Is it that Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan are more odious
          than the wartime Japanese leaders? Is it just politics (a
          chance to embarass Newt?). Is it that the Japanese suffered
          from the War more than Germany did?
 
          Finally, I'm glad that this historian was fired, because she
          was, by all accounts, a radical right-wing ideologue. And,
          though I can see some point about why Hitler's point of view
          should be represented when considering how a society gets
          behind a genocidal program, I can't possibly imagine what
          the Ku Klux Klan has to do with this question.
 
          Anyway, this is all within the complex thread of "who owns
          history" which has flared up in this list from time to time,
          and, to me, is one of the museum community's most
          interesting and vexing questions.
 
          Eric Siegel
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