January 11 to February 22, 2025

Library of Michigan

The Michael and Elaine Serling Institute for Jewish Studies and Modern Israel has been working with the Library of Michigan in Lansing for the past year to bring to mid-Michigan a provocative exhibit that considers how Americans responded to the onslaught of Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s.  

The Library of Michigan is one of 50 U.S. libraries newly selected to host Americans and the Holocaust, a traveling exhibition from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Library Association (ALA) that examines the motives, pressures and fears that shaped Americans’ responses to Nazism, war and genocide in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s.

Following a highly successful tour to 50 libraries from 2021 to 2023, the touring library exhibition— based on the special exhibition of the same name at the Museum in Washington, D.C. — will travel to an additional 50 U.S. libraries from 2024 to 2026, covering wide distances from Hawaii and Alaska to Texas and New Hampshire.

Americans and the Holocaust will be on display at the Library of Michigan, along with a series of related special events, from January 11th, 2025 to February 22nd, 2025.

The 1,100-square-foot exhibition examines various aspects of American society: the government, the military, refugee aid organizations, the media and the general public. Drawing on a remarkable collection of primary sources from the 1930s and

’40s, the exhibition tells the stories of Americans who acted in response to Nazism, challenging the commonly held assumptions that Americans knew little and did nothing about the Nazi persecution and murder of Jews as the Holocaust unfolded. It provides a portrait of American society that shows how the Depression, isolationism, xenophobia, racism and antisemitism shaped responses to Nazism and the Holocaust.

Kirsten Fermaglich, associate director of the Serling Institute, worked with the Library of Michigan and other partner institutions, to develop four public programs to accompany the Americans and the Holocaust exhibit.

On Thursday, January 16, the Library of Michigan will host an all-day teachers’ workshop on “Americans and the Holocaust.” Middle and high school teachers will participate in lectures on the Holocaust and US immigration policy; hear a talk given by a second-generation survivor; and receive a walk-through of the exhibit.  The workshop is free to educators (though it requires registration) and also offers teachers the chance to bring their classes through the exhibit.

On Monday, January 27, from 6-8 pm, the Library of Michigan will host a lecture and exhibit walk-through from Daniel Greene, the curator of Americans and the Holocaust. Greene will discuss the making of the exhibit, as well as the domestic conditions in the United States that shaped Americans’ responses to atrocities abroad. 

On Thursday, February 6, from 6-8 pm, the Library of Michigan will host a panel: “Red Tape, not Red Carpet:  Contemporary Refugees and Bureaucracy in the United States,” featuring local leaders who work with refugees in the mid-Michigan area: Ben Cabanaw, from the Office of Global Michigan; Shirin Kambin, from the Immigrant and Refugee Resource Collaborative; Merkeb Youhannes, of the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic & Sexual Violence; and Durkhshan Sediqy, of Catholic Charities on Ingham, Eaton and Clinton Counties.  As moderator, Kirsten Fermaglich will discuss historical origins of refugee policy in the United States; the panel will connect historical experiences of refugees from the 1930s to the contemporary experiences of newcomers to the United States today.  

On Monday, February 10, from 6-8 pm, the Library of Michigan will host the panel: “Rethinking the History of Antisemitism in Michigan.”  Michigan has a significant history of prominent antisemitic voices, including Henry Ford, Father Charles Coughlin, and Gerald L.K. Smith.  The panel features experts on these subjects—Catherine Cangany of the Jewish Historical Society of Michigan, Karla Goldman of University of Michigan, John Jackson, Jr. of Michigan State University, Andrew Lapin of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and independent scholar Victoria Saker Woeste—who will discuss the subjects of their research, as well as the significance of historical antisemitism for Michiganders today.

Finally, the Edythe and Eli Broad Museum at Michigan State University will also co-sponsor a companion exhibit: Americans and the Holocaust:  A Michigan Perspective in conjunction with the Americans and the Holocaust exhibit.  Students in Kirsten Fermaglich’s HST 480 senior seminar, on “Americans and the Holocaust” and Amy Simon’s HST 392 on the “History of the Holocaust” will work on projects that will complement the physical exhibit at the Broad Museum.

We are thrilled to help bring this important and powerful exhibition to Michigan, and to sponsor all this exciting programming. We hope members of the MSU community will explore this visit and attend these programs. They encourage us all to examine a key aspect of US history and challenges us to not only ask ‘what would I have done?’ but also, ‘what will I do?

Kirsten Fermaglich 

Multiple partners helped to sponsor the exhibits and programming along with the Serling Institute and the Library of Michigan:  the Raoul Wallenberg Institute at the University of Michigan; the Zekelman Holocaust Center; the Arts, Cultural Management & Museum Studies program at Michigan State University; the Michigan State University Department of History; the Jewish Historical Society of Michigan; and the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University.

For more information about Americans and the Holocaust and related programming at the Library of Michigan, visit Michigan.gov/LMAATH. To learn more about the exhibition, visit ushmm.org/americans-ala.