2019-09-04 The Hollywood Reporter

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 21 SEPTEMBER 4, 2019

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Photographed by Christopher Patey

Using Hitler’s Words to Fight Modern Hate

he became Germany’s chancellor;

12 years after that, 6 million Jews

were dead.

To mark the document ’s

centenary, four entertainment

moguls and supporters of the

museum and its sibling, the Simon

Wiesenthal Center — Paramount’s

Jim Gianopulos, Quibi’s Jeffrey

Katzenberg, NBCUniversal’s Ron

Meyer and Netflix’s Te d S a r a n d o s

— visited the museum on an

August morning to examine the

letter with Rabbi Marvin Hier,

Holocaust survivor Betty Cohen, holding Hitler’s historic letter, was photographed Aug. 15 with

(from left) Ron Meyer, Ted Sarandos, Rabbi Marvin Hier, Jim Gianopulos and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

One hundred years after the future Führer made his first written declaration of ‘the final goal’ to eradicate Jews,

studio moguls stand for the memory and lessons of the Holocaust By Scott Feinberg

SWC’s founder (and a two-time

Oscar winner). They were joined

by Betty Cohen, a 98-year-old

Holocaust survivor who often

speaks at the museum about her

experience in several concentra-

tion camps — Birkenau, Auschwitz

and Ravensbrück.

“This would be published on

8chan today,” says Sarandos of

the letter. “The similarities of

the darkest part of the human

condition are quite striking.”

Adds Gianopulos, “The level

of discourse has gotten so low

and reflected things that are so

Six years before the publication

of Mein Kampf, Hitler’s superior

asked him to reply to an inquiry

from soldier Adolf Gemlich about

the Army’s position on “the

Jewish question.” Hitler put into

writing — for the first time — his

hatred for Jews (“pure material-

ists in thought and aspirations”

and a “racial tuberculosis on the

nation”) and desire to eradicate

them (“The final goal must be the

uncompromised removal of Jews

altogether”). Fourteen years later,

A

t a time when hate

speech and hate

crimes are surging

all around the world,

West L.A.’s Museum of Tolerance

is warning that every display of

hate must be taken seriously, lest

it grow into something powerful

and deadly. That’s what happened

100 years ago — on Sept. 16, 1919

— when a 30-year-old Adolf Hitler,

just out of World War I service and

into a German Army propaganda

unit, penned a missive that’s now

the most historically significant

item in the museum’s archive.