Cold War casualties of communism seek museum on National Mall

washingtontimes.com ^ | Jacqueline Klimas | Jacqueline Klimas

[Tailgunner Joe]

With Russia making waves on the world stage and Marxism resurfacing in some academic circles, those who survived communism say it’s time to get serious about building a museum to honor the victims of such governments and warn of the dangers of a relapse.

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation wants to break ground on a museum in Washington in October 2017, in time for the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution that created the Soviet Union.

“What we see in Ukraine and Russia grappling with and dealing with the toxic legacy of Soviet communism in that part of the world, I think there is a growing awareness that this is a very serious and real issue,” said Marion Smith, executive director of the foundation.

The museum would house documents, art and other historical artifacts, Mr. Smith said. While the foundation has some material, he said it is working with donors to gather other collections and would plan to work internationally with museums in former communist countries for rotating exhibits.

The museum would be a follow-up to the Victims of Communism Memorial, dedicated seven years ago in Washington on the 20th anniversary of President Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” speech at the Berlin Wall.

Critics of that memorial alleged that it condemned other countries without mention of American violations. For example, according to Russian news site Ria Novosti, Ukrainian communists reacted by opening a museum with exhibits on mass killings of American Indians, slavery, U.S. racism and invasion of foreign countries.

[skinkinthegrass]

Congressional specimens that could be stuffed, mounted and
displayed behind glass at the new Communist museumumm...the Ted Kennedy Branch, would be as big as ....
the Smithsonian Aviation/Space Museum

[ansel12]

The National Mall is turning into a Disneyland of memorials - they are coming faster and faster, and get stranger and more political with each new one. How about just stopping all new memorials on the Mall completely - and leave it as an open green public space, as it was intended?

It is becoming a place for foreigners to plant their memorials, why don't they quit doing the ones that aren't about us.

[JoeFromSidney]

It is becoming a place for foreigners to plant their memorials, why don't they quit doing the ones that aren't about us.

I agree. The Holocaust Museum might be a good idea, but it has doesn't belong on the Mall. It should have been located somewhere else. I feel the same about this proposed museum. Put it somewhere else.

[ansel12]

It is another symptom of mass immigration and the view that today America is just the world’s bus stop, that after 50 years of global immigration, we belong to the world now and are not only multi-cultural, but multi-national now.