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U.S. Loans Eugenics Exhibit to Germany

An exhibition on loan from the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. opened in the Federal Republic of Germany on Thursday, at the same building that once served as a printing house for posters promoting Nazi racial policies. Originally established as a hygiene museum in the 1930s, once the Nazis ascended to power in 1933 it became a key center for the racist propaganda that was a hallmark of the Hitlerian regime.

The exhibit, titled "Deadly Medicine - Racial Madness in National Socialism," opened in Dresden, in the eastern German state of Saxony, where members of a far-right party now hold seats in the legislature. The exhibit might be controversial as a result. This is the first loan of an exhibition given by the U.S. Holocaust Museum abroad. More than 700,000 people have viewed the exhibit in the U.S.

The exhibit is divided into three parts. The first section depicts the rise of the theory of eugenics, a racist pseudo-science that aimed to improve humanity through the control of hereditary traits. A leading center of eugenics study was located in the United States. The second section of the exhibit centers around eugenics in Nazi Germany. The third details the outcome of Nazi "medical-science" in the destruction of more than six million Jews and other lesser-known euthanasia campaigns.