PROJECTS

Fighting the Fires of Hate: America and the Nazi Book Burnings

The Gonzaga Institute for Action Against Hate is proud to bring this traveling exhibit to Eastern Washington. The exhibit was created by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and it will be at the Foley Library from March 10, 2007 to May 5, 2007. Please check back to this web site throughout the year as we will post more information related to this project as it becomes available. Below is a description of the exhibit.

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.

This description is taken from the Holocaust Memorial Museum and more information about the exhibit can be found by clicking on the link.

If you are interested in supporting this exhibit coming to Eastern Washington, please contact us at againsthate@gonzaga.edu or 509-323-3665 to learn how you can donate to this project.