Exhibitions

Current Exhibit:  Fighting the Fires of Hate:  America and the Nazi Book Burnings
Coming in October 2010

…illustrates how the issue of censorship continues to be embraced by many and that book burnings are still with us.
                                                                            - Washington Post, 2003

For Americans, the iconography of Nazism is found in the swastika, the jackboot, the Nazi banner.  But another symbol - flames and fire-accompanied the Third Reich from its strident inception to its apocalyptic demise.  On January 30, 1933, torchlight parades announced the onset of the Nazi revolution.  One month later, the flames of the Reichstag fire consumed the last vestiges of the Weimar Constitution.  On May 10, 1933, German university students launched an “Action Against the Un-German Spirit” targeting authors ranging from Helen Keller and Ernest Hemingway to Sigmund Freud.  Americans quickly condemned the book burnings as antithetical to the democratic spirit. 

The exhibition, Fighting the Fires of Hate:  America and the Nazi Book Burnings focuses on how the book burnings became a potent symbol during World War II in America’s battle against Nazism, and concludes by examining their continued impact on our public discourse.

The exhibit is a collaborative effort between the Holocaust Center of the United Jewish Federation and the American Jewish Museum of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh.

**********

Every year – usually in the fall – the Holocaust Center sponsors a Holocaust-related exhibition. Often, the Center collaborates with the American Jewish Museum of the Jewish Community Center of Pittsburgh. Sometimes it collaborates with other organizations and/or venues depending upon the size/set-up of the exhibition. 

Most exhibitions are set-up to include docent-led tours for school and community groups, as well as wrap-around programming that further explores the details of the particular exhibit topic.

Some of the exhibits the Center has sponsored over the past 25 years include:  Auschwitz: A Crime Against Mankind (1987); Anne Frank (early 1990's and 1999); Jews, Germany Memory: Photos by Edward Serotta (1998); The Women of Ravensbruck (2002); and Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race (2006-2007).