IBM and the Holocaust - A Book That Needs To Be Read

For the last several weeks, I have been working my way through a book that has opened up a  piece of Holocaust history that I was totally unaware.  I have mentioned this book before, and I will mention it again and again, because it has importance as a historical record of past events, but also because it is relevant to the present and the future, in my opinion.

IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black (2001) is a long book filled with details about one of America's most powerful corporations in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and right up to the present day. What they did, or what one man, Thomas J. Watson, Sr., did to make vast amounts of money is a story that needs to be told and retold.  Making money is not a crime, but making money while others die and suffer is another story.  IBM played a very significant role in the Jewish Holocaust of the 1930s and 1940s. There is no way that they can say they were unaware of what their machines were doing as it related to the destruction of European Jewry.

That the United State Holocaust Memorial Museum does not sell this book in their gift shop at the museum is only a temporary situation.  As soon as I finish this book, my next action will be to write to the executive director of the museum and state why IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black needs to be on their shelves. A museum dedicated to telling the whole truth can not selectively decide that this book should not be seen and read.