Nationalist Governments Are Trying To Rewrite Holocaust History — By Targeting Museums

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/polin-poland-museums-stola_n_5e627901c5b647a5bd315aaa
"Poland’s attack on Stola is part of a wider trend of far-right and nationalist governments waging a culture war against academic and historical institutions around the world. Governments have presented these policies as a way to take back control from so-called liberal elites or putting a stop to inaccurate information, but in practice they consolidate historical memory in the hands of the ruling party. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán praised the country’s anti-Semitic WWII-era leader and chased out a well-regarded liberal university. The government has passed laws to tighten control over theaters and cultural institutions, rewritten textbooks and banned gender studies. It also tried to put a pro-government historian in charge of a controversial Holocaust museum, resulting in widespread concern that the institution would whitewash the country’s role in the genocide. Meanwhile, Italy’s powerful far-right Lega Party proposed building a new museum in a former headquarters of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist party. Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro dismantled the Ministry of Culture, ordered the commemoration of the country’s 1964 military coup and defunded arts programs. Brazil’s Culture Secretary Roberto Alvim vowed earlier this year to launch an initiative to fund nationalist and religious art, although Alvim ended up losing his job after reporters found his remarks closely copied a 1933 speech from Nazi propagandist Joeseph Goebbels."