Appalling Spectacle

Three days before Halloween, I went to the Museum of Man’s annual haunted house and was distraught with my findings. Upon entering the museum, the first thing visitors see is a sign directing them to “Leningrad” and pointing them to the next room. Meanwhile, on the ground, are people crying for help, acting as victims of hunger and disease.

In the next room, supposedly “Leningrad,” are doctors performing what appears to be freak medical experiments on their patients. The patients are screaming while their bones are revealed as stripped of flesh and covered with blood. The initial impression given is that Leningrad is a place where people are dying from disease, hunger, and abusive experiments, reminding learned students of similar experiments from Nazi Germany.

This scene is appalling. It is representative of the type of propaganda that should not be present in American society. What ideas does this plant in the minds of our children about the Soviet Union? Exaggerated and dramatized perceptions of foreign society, such as this, obstruct the movement for good public relations with fellow world powers. Does this not damage the peaceable effects of the Soviet arts festival?

In a haunted house, designed for young children, displays of this nature should be left out. They definitely do not belong in a museum, a place where art and history are preserved for knowledge and growth.

KENNETH OSGOOD

Coronado