Mobile Holocaust museum comes to Delaware Jan. 2025

A mobile museum dedicated to teaching the history and horrors of the Holocaust is coming to Delaware. 

Americans and the Holocaust, a traveling museum exhibition from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Library Association, is making its way to the Hirons Library of Goldey-Beacom College in Wilmington. 

It will be on display from Jan. 11 to Feb. 22, 2025, with a series of related special events on campus. 

The exhibition is free and open to the public.

School President Dr. Colleen Perry-Keith said the school was chosen through a highly competitive grant process, and Goldey-Beacom is proud to have been selected as one of 50 U.S. libraries to host the exhibition.

“Understanding about the Holocaust leads to not just an understanding of mass violence, but also about the value of promoting human rights, ethics and civic engagement,” she said. “It can help us all to understand the situations that can lead to exclusionary policies that make negative outcomes possible.”

She quoted George Santayana, a philosopher and writer, who said “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

“This exhibit helps us to remember and understand and to build a better world, each in our own way,” Keith said. 

The exhibition will examine the motives, pressures and fears that shaped Americans’ responses to Nazism, war and genocide in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s.

It will also explore the many factors, like the Great Depression, isolationism, xenophobia, racism and antisemitism, that influenced decisions made by the U.S. government, the news media, organizations and individuals as they responded to Nazism. 

The 1,100-square-foot traveling museum is also meant to challenge the common assumption that Americans knew little and did nothing about the Nazi persecution and murder of Jews as the Holocaust unfolded.

To compliment the museum, Goldey-Beacom will have several accompanying events:

• A History of Anti-Semitism (Jan. 22, 2025 at 4 p.m.)
• The U.S. and the Holocaust (Jan. 29, 2025 at 11 a.m.)
• Combating Nazism: Stephen S. Wise and the Fight To Save The Jews (Feb. 6, 2025 at 4 p.m.)
• From the Warsaw Ghetto to American Shores: Preserving History and Reflecting on Local Reactions to the Holocaust (Feb. 10, 2025 at 4 p.m.)
• Transcending Trauma Project (Feb. 17, 2025 at 11 a.m.)
• War For Kindness (Feb. 19, 2025 at 11 a.m.)

Register for the events here.

“We will encourage our local community members as well as our neighbors in surrounding states to visit Delaware to explore the exhibition,” Keith said. “Throughout the upcoming months, GBC will provide additional information to the public and our community partners.”

The college plans to partner with schools to host field trips so students can become engaged with the exhibit. 

“The exhibition will challenge people to not only ask ‘what would I have done?’ but also, ‘what will I do?’,” Keith said.