July 9 Although the day is not over I wanted to explain a bit about today's lectures. The first two were by Dr. Yaavov Lozowick, who gave a compelling view of Nazi racial ideology and the persecution of the Jews from 1933-39 in Germany. What was both compelling and disturbing was his explanation on how an idea on a continuum scale can be acceptable one one side ( such as a person being Nationalistic) to an extreme of racism, while both ideas stem from the same point; hence people believed from the 19th century that Jews were a non people and therefore did not warrant to be treated as 'humans' Yes they were humans as opposed to animals however they were on the far side of the continuum. He continued with a lecture on 1933-39 and what was very telling was the explanation on how Hitler operated. Essentially the people who could get a 'meeting' with him were the ones whose ideas w3ere given a nod or not. In the case of Kristalnacht Goebbels whispered in Hitler's ear that it would b e a good idea to hit the Jews hard after the murder of the low level Nazi by a Jewish youth. He agreed. The irony was that Goering also met with Hitler afterwards to say it was a BAD idea since ll the property destroyed was German! and would fall into German aryan hands once the law of possession too hold. In fact there were many Jews who had liability insurance and since so much glass was broken it was costly to replace since thee were no Glass makers in Germany- closes one was Belgium. The second lecture was by Yale educated Dr Rachel Perry and dealt with art. The degenerate art exhibit of those works Nazi's deemed unworthy. Artists like Chagall were looked at as degenerate. The display of this art was in a dirty small space and was free to the public where as the museum for Great German Art was housed in a beautiful venue. In addition over 3 million people viewed the degenerate art as opposed to 400,00 who paid to see Great German Art.