Metropolitan Police Department: Learning the Lessons of the Holocaust to Train Better Police Officers for Today and Tomorrow

Learning the Lessons of the Holocaust to Train Better Police Officers for Today and Tomorrow

Charles H. Ramsey
Chief of Police
Metropolitan Police Department

Chief Ramsey delivered the following keynote address at a symposium celebrating "Law Enforcement and Society: Lessons of the Holocaust," a joint training project of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Anti-Defamation League. The program provides law enforcement officers with a history of the Holocaust and offers them an opportunity to examine and understand their personal and professional responsibilities in our pluralistic democracy. As one of the program's originators, Chief Ramsey now requires this one-day training for all Metropolitan Police recruits and all veteran officers took the course during fiscal year 2001. Widely acclaimed, the program has since expanded to other local and federal agencies, including police in Montgomery County, Anne Arundel County, Baltimore city and Baltimore County (all in Maryland), Maryland State Police, Fairfax County (Virginia), and the FBI.

It is indeed an honor for me to be your speaker tonight, to offer my perspective on a training program which I very much believe in, and which I know is improving the quality of policing here in our Nation's Capital—and, now, in other jurisdictions as well. The idea for this unique program may have started with some brainstorming among a handful of individuals. But the fact of the matter is that "Lessons of the Holocaust" has been, and continues to be, a team effort. And I would like to thank, and salute, all of the team members on the project:

Sara Bloomfield and the entire staff of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; David Friedman and his staff at the Washington Regional Office of the Anti-Defamation League; And Assistant Chief Al Broadbent, and his successor, Assistant Chief Shannon Cockett, and the staff of the Maurice T. Turner Jr. Institute of Police Science—our police training academy. It took all of you working together to get this program off the ground. And all of you have continued working together, continuously evaluating and improving upon the curriculum that is now part of the basic training for all of recruit officers in the Metropolitan Police Department. There were no guidelines or "best practices" for you to rely on. You were operating in uncharted territory. But by working a team, you have done a remarkable job of bringing the lessons of the Holocaust home, of making them meaningful to our police officers of today and tomorrow. Congratulations to all of you—and thank you for helping to make our Police Department and our profession that much better. You are truly making a difference.

I must admit that it is difficult for me, at times, to express the full range of ideas and emotions I have about this topic. The lessons of the Holocaust—for law enforcement and for society in general—are that far-reaching, and my own reactions to this human tragedy are deep and complex.

I will never forget the first time I visited the museum, as a guest of David Friedman, soon after I had been named Chief almost two years ago. I spent a good part of that tour walking and talking with Irene Weiss—who is, of course, a Holocaust survivor. Just to hear her tell her own experiences and memories was so powerful for me. All of us study the Holocaust in school. But few of us have the opportunity to hear about it first hand, in ways that a textbook could never capture.

I left that first visit to the Museum truly overwhelmed with emotion. But I also left with a strong sense that there were important lessons in this facility—lessons for myself and for every police officer. So I went back a few weeks later and toured the Museum again, on my own this time. And it was really following that second visit that the lessons of the Holocaust started to become clearer in my own mind - and the idea of making these lessons part of the lesson plan for our police recruits began to take hold. From there, it took people like David and Sara and the leadership at our police academy to turn this idea into something real and tangible and relevant. They have done an outstanding job in meeting that challenge, and I am very proud to be associated with them.

In preparing for tonight's program, I decided to take a couple of hours, last Friday, to tour the permanent exhibition one more time. You know—one of the remarkable things about this Museum is that each time I visit it, I come away with new information about the Holocaust, and new insights into our topic tonight: the role of law enforcement in the Holocaust and the lessons it holds for today. Last Friday's visit was no different.

When you first get off the elevator to begin the tour, one of the first images you see is a 1945 photograph of a lone prisoner who has just been liberated from Buchenwald. He is eating from a simple bowl. What I have always found striking about this photograph—what has always pulled me into the image—is the subject's eyes. Usually, the idea of "liberation" conjures up images of parties and ticker-tape parades and wild celebrations in the streets. There were certainly many of these images of liberation captured by photographers as World War II was coming to a close.

But this liberation photo is obviously much different. And the difference, I think, is captured in the eyes of the newly liberated prisoner. His eyes tell the story of much more than just physical pain and exhaustion. They reveal a story of intense emotional pain, of anguish and, ultimately, of resignation. Given what this man has been through, there is no room for what we might consider to be natural reactions at a time of liberation - reactions of relief, excitement and joy.