Beginning on January 12, the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center will be hosting the exhibit Fighting the Fires of Hate: America and the Book Burning at the Center, 851 N Maitland Avenue in Maitland. The exhibit was created by and provided to the Center by the U.S.Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C.
Although America was slow to respond to many of Hitler’s overt activities, the May 1933 public burning of works by Jewish and non-Jewish authors from around the world caught the attention – and anger – of the U.S. It was a visual affront to one of America’s most treasured freedoms: the right to the free expression of ideas.
The American media extensively covered the book burnings and the resultant protests. It was virtually unanimous in its condemnation of the acts, but considered them with varying degrees of gravity. Some newspapers called the German student actions “silly,” “ineffective,” or “infantile”, but others more accurately described it as an insane assault “against intellectual values, and the rights of the human spirit.”
The book burnings have been, and continue to be, a symbol of tyranny and intolerance. This exhibit provides an extraordinary breadth and depth of information on both the reason and the impact of Nazi’s overt destruction of books.
Admission to the Holocaust Center is free. It is open Monday through Thursday 9 am to 4 pm, Friday 9 am to 1 pm, and Sunday 1 pm to 4 pm.
More information is available at www.holocaustedu.org or by calling 407-628-0555. Information about the exhibit is also available from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum site, www.ushmm.org .
