Press Release: For Immediate Release - August 13, 2008

Update! Update!

 U.S. Holocaust Museum Removes Falsified Biography of Mufti of Jerusalem

 The U.S. Holocaust Museum (USHMM) today removed from its website the falsified biography of the Holocaust era Mufti of Jerusalem. The Museum was criticized for blurring the line between facts and opinion, and in so doing, opening the door to Holocaust denial.

The father of Palestinian nationalism, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Hussayni, was a terrorist and a Nazi collaborator, indicted at the Eichmann Trial. The Museum wrote a web biography which presented al-Hussayni as a moderate supporter of non-violence.  Falsifying and omitting key facts from the historical record, including photographs of Hussayni conferring with Hitler, the Holocaust Museum attempted to exonerate him from well documented charges of Nazi collaboration.  The Museum’s website stated that his “controversial…relationship with Hitler’s government…has led some to label him a Nazi collaborator and war criminal….”

Within hours of the widespread dissemination to the press and public of HMWatch's press release describing the Museum's whitewash of the Mufti, the Museum removed the article.

The Museum still does NOT have in its archives the infamous November 28, 1941 photograph of the Mufti meeting with Hitler when he obtained Hitler's assurance to exterminate the Jews of the Middle East. Nor does the Museum  have a factual biography of the Mufti and his role in creating the Nazi-Palestinian alliance.

There are direct historical links between the Nazis, the Final Solution, Husayni, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda. The Museum chose to falsify these historical roots in the Mufti’s biography because the Museum is determined to be silent about current Muslim anti-Semitism and its connection to Nazism.

We applaud the Museum for removing the meretricious article and call on them to post an accurate one and to break their silence on the roots and connections of current Muslim anti-Semitism and Nazism.

Contact: Carol Greenwald, chairman, Holocaust Museum Watch
cgreenwald1@verizon.net

Press Release:  For Immediate Release - August  13, 2008         

U.S. Holocaust Museum Accused of Falsifying History of Nazi-Palestinian Alliance

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), the nation’s leading educational institution on the Holocaust, has posted on its website a biography of the Holocaust-era Mufti of Jerusalem (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007255) that distorts the historical record of the Holocaust.

The father of Palestinian nationalism, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Hussayni, was a terrorist and a Nazi collaborator, indicted at the Eichmann Trial. The Museum wrote a web biography which presents al-Hussayni as a moderate supporter of non-violence.  Falsifying and omitting key facts from the historical record, including photographs of Hussayni conferring with Hitler, the Holocaust Museum attempts to exonerate him from well documented charges of Nazi collaboration.  The Museum’s website states that his “controversial…relationship with Hitler’s government…has led some to label him a Nazi collaborator and war criminal….”

When the Museum blurs the line between facts and opinion, it opens the door to Holocaust denial.  The Holocaust Museum’s standard for historical truth cannot be what “some” say, since some say there was no Holocaust.  The Museum’s entire mission depends on disseminating the facts of the Holocaust.  They have now joined deniers in attempting to whitewash parts of the historical record that they seem to find politically difficult. Changing history throws the Museum’s credibility into question. (Fact Sheet attached.) 

The Mufti’s Lasting Legacy Ignored by Museum

There are direct historical links between the Nazis, the Final Solution, Husayni, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda.  The Museum’s policy is silence about current Muslim antisemitism.  Now it has chosen to falsify these historical roots in the Mufti’s biography. Accordingly, it chose an academic well known for denying any link between Nazism and the current Islamic terror organizations to misrepresent the genocidal activities of the Mufti.

Conclusion: It is very serious when the Museum creates a false historical record.

The Museum website calls the Mufti a “moderate voice for peace” and states that his collaboration with Hitler was “inconclusive” and his work for the Nazis was “ineffective.”

·        A British inquiry found Husayni responsible for the 1936-39 reign of terror against Jews and Arab moderates in Palestine. The violence led the British to close Palestine to Jews fleeing the Final Solution.  The Mufti spent the war in Nazi Berlin working for Hitler.

·        The Jerusalem court that tried Eichmann found in its Judgments, Part 50: “It has been proved to us that the Mufti, too, aimed at the implementation of the final solution, viz. the extermination of European Jewry.”

·        The Mufti recruited 20,000 Muslims for the Handschar divisions of the Waffen SS that annihilated 90% of Bosnia’s Jews.  Yugoslavia convicted him of war crimes.  He fled to Egypt where he recruited fleeing Nazis and helped found modern Islamic terrorism through the Muslim Brotherhood and the PLO.

Contact: Carol Greenwald, Chairman, Holocaust Museum Watch.
cgreenwald1@verizon.net.

Read more: Fact Sheet 1 | Fact Sheet 2 | Fact Sheet 3 | Executive Summary | Letter to Museum's Executive Director

In an 85,000 image library, the U.S. Holocaust Museum does not include this famous photograph of Husayni and Hitler, obtained from Yad Vashem. At this meetig, Hitler agreed to the Mufti’s request to extend the Final Solution to the Jews of the Middle East.

Reference: notes of the meeting are in Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918-1945, Series D, Vol. XIII, p. 881. available at the USHMM library)