Law Enforcement and the Holocaust
By William McCormack

Law enforcement agencies in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area recently have begun a training program drawing upon the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as a resource to explore a variety of issues relevant to law enforcement today.1 This program, cosponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, has provided law enforcement officers with a unique opportunity to witness the dangers and horrors that can occur when law enforcement abdicates its role as a protector of citizens’ liberties and rights and, ultimately, becomes a tool of a government involved in a systematic genocidal program. As a result of the success of this program, the museum also has instituted other educational programs for law enforcement officers, such as traveling exhibits from the museum that move to various cities within the United States.2

History
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, chartered by a unanimous Act of Congress in 1980 and opened in 1993, is America’s national institution for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history. The public’s response to and interest in the museum, which annually hosts over 2 million visitors to its permanent exhibits in Washington, D.C., has surpassed the expectations of those involved in its planning.

The museum’s collaboration with law enforcement began in 1999 when the chief of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police
Department began using the