That [research on the history of the Jewish question in Europe] also seems to us to be necessary for the following reason: if the Jewish question in Germany - and at some time in all of Europe - is solved, then a generation might come after us that is no longer able to give itself an account of what really happened during these decades. Freed of Jewish influence, our grandchildren might again fall into enraptured ideas and no longer be able to estimate the activities of the Jewish people in the midst of the Europeans in the way we must do today. People's memories are very short; often thirty or fifty years are enough no longer to give even the worst fates a place in popular awareness. That is why we cannot be satisfied with what we have experienced over the last decades, not just with the books and speeches that came forth out of the immediate struggle; rather, we must complete the experienced insights, some of which were already based on deep understanding, by doing extensive research.- Alfred Rosenberg, "Nationalsozialismus und Wissenschaft," 1941

Aside from a window into the disturbing antisemitism of Rosenberg, this extended quote from Rosenberg's contribution to the journal Weltkampf: die Judenfrage in Geschichte und Gegenwart illustrates the rationale some within the Third Reich's leadership had when they conceived of a postwar museum of Jewish culture and life. Such ideas had reached an embryonic form in 1941/42 as the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) and the RSHA gathered together vast amounts of Jewish archival property. The idea behind these museums was that after the elimination of the Jewish people, it was very important to for the Third Reich to present its version of Jewish history and culture. The Third Reich's museums were no stranger to highly politicized exhibits, such as the infamous "Entartete Kunst," that ridiculed modern art as degenerate. But beyond the propagandastic pedagogy of a postwar Jewish museum, Rosenberg's avowal that a museum would facilitate future research also reveals an important scientific mentality that was central to many of the planners of the Holocaust. The young professionals of the RSHA and the various archivists and academics who worked for ERR styled themselves as modern professionals. This mentality was part of underlying justification for the preservation of Judaism in Europe, whether the preserved skeletons of "representative" racial types or, in this case, physical cultural materials like Jewish books or handicrafts. In their mentality, genocide was connected intimately with the furtherance of human knowledge.

Yet the goal to preserve evidence of genocide was neither universal nor consistent within Third Reich. The SS's Aktion 1005 was tasked in 1942 with the disposal of the corpses created by the Operation Reinhard camps as well as those created by the Einsatzgruppen. The cremation of these corpses was not entirely supported by some in the SS. Odilo Globocnik argued to his superiors and colleagues that cremation implied guilt and that the Reich should instead construct vast ossuaries for Jews emblazoned with bronze tablets congratulating his generation for having the courage to see this difficult task through. Despite the fact that some of his superiors agreed with Globocnik's sentiments, including Hitler himself in one account, the Reich's leadership elected to destroy the majority of the Holocaust's corpses.

Nor were the collection of Jewish archival materials as systematic and thorough as the pretensions of Rosenberg and his ilk made them out to be. Confiscated Judiaca that did not catch the eye of ERR officials was often destroyed. For example, ERR selected some twenty thousand volumes of books from Vilna from synagogues, Jewish archives, and private ownership, but this was just 20 percent of the what was collected in Vilna. Johannes Pohl, ERR's representative charged with this task, ordered the remaining volumes pulped. Similarly, Torah scrolls, which elicited very little interest from ERR, were often recycled into materials for bookbinding or leather items like shoes. The idea of a central museum in Prague evolved out of the fact that Prague served as a central depot for the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia's confiscated Jewish property. This meant Prague had vast warehouses of Jewish objects, which the RSHA considered to be state property. Although not of immediate value in wartime, this Judaica was considered to have some value and the Third Reich, like many states, was reluctant to give up what it saw as its own property.

Whether or not the Third Reich would have carried through ERR's plans to create a postwar museum is unknown. There was certainly a great deal of material available to create such a museum. There were two non-public exhibitions in Prague in 1942 and 1943 of Judaica which were enabled by these vast amounts of stolen material. Yet most of the plans for Jewish museums were usually tabled for an indeterminate time after the war had been concluded. In a speech given two days after his infamous 1943 Poznan speech, Himmler said:

One can consider at a much later time whether the German people should be told more about this. I think it is better that we – we as a whole – have carried this for our people, have carried the responsibility (the responsibility for a deed, not just for an idea); and then we will carry this secret to our graves.

Himmler's waffling illustrates the indeterminacy of such a museum project. There was both a clear imperative to document and portray for subsequent generations of Germans the nature of the Reich's racial Feind, but this existed in an uneasy tension with a tendency to cover up the evidence of mass genocide. Had such a museum been constructed, it would have had to reconcile these two very contradictory impulses.

Sources

Confino, Alon. A World Without Jews: The Nazi Imagination from Persecution to Genocide. new Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.

Eckert, Astrid M. The Struggle for the Files: The Western allies and the Return of German Archives after the Second World War. Washington, D.C.: German Historical Institute, 2012.

Rupnow, Dirk. "From Final Depository to Memorial the History and Significance of the Jewish Museum in Prague." European Judaism (2004): 142-159.

_. "Annihilation – Collection – Preservation: The Nazi Archive of Jewish History and Culture and its effect on Postwar Memory," http://www.jewishculture.illinois.edu/programs/holocaust/archive/Rupnow.pdf .