"Weapons in the War of Ideas"
"Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too."
-Heinrich Heine, 1822
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Anti-Nazi Rally, New York City.
Courtesy U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum/NARA
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On May 10, 1933, German university students embarked on a series of book burnings, destroying the works of many well-known authors, including Helen Keller, Ernest Hemingway, Sigmund Freud, and Heinrich Heine. Americans responded to the book burnings by staging mass counter demonstrations.
Up to 100,000 Americans attended an anti-Nazi rally in New York City on May 10, 1933, in reaction to Nazi persecution of Jews and the book burnings. It was, at the time, the largest political demonstration in New York City history.
Fighting the Fires of Hate: America and the Nazi Book Burnings, a traveling exhibition from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, examines the Nazi's early attempts to suppress freedom of expression and the strong response that occurred in America. The Wyandotte County Museum in Bonner Springs is hosting the exhibition through June 17, along with a local exhibition about the history of Wyandotte County's Jewish community.
A series of companion programs includes a presentation by Michael Jacobs, Holocaust survivor and founder of the Dallas Holocaust Museum, on May 1. Details and a full schedule of events can be found here.
The local exhibition and programs are supported by a KHC Mini grant.
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