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Traveling Holocaust exhibition coming to Heart of America Library next year

By Angie Reinoehl - Staff Writer | Apr 6, 2024

The Heart of America Library in Rugby is one of 50 libraries in the United States that has been selected to host “Americans and the Holocaust,” a traveling exhibition from the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum and the American Library Association.

The 1,100-square-foot exhibition explores the Holocaust from the American point of view and examines the motives and fears that shaped the United State’s responses to Nazism, war and genocide in the 1930s and 1940s. It details how the depression, isolationism, xenophobia, racism and antisemitism shaped the reactions from the government, the military, refugee aid organizations, the media and the general public.

In addition to the traveling exhibition, the Heart of America Library received a $3,000 grant to support special events for the public. The funds will also cover the director of the library, Mandie Medalen, to travel to Washington, D.C., in May to attend an orientation workshop at the U.S. Holocaust Museum.

Medalen said last year the Bismarck Veterans Library was chosen to host the exhibition and had special programming which included a book study, special speakers and movies. She said she is hoping to facilitate special events like these during the exhibition.

Medalen applied for the opportunity in September which included obtaining letters of endorsement from community organizations and ideas for special programming. The Heart of America Library was one of 50 chosen from a pool of around 150 applicants and the only library chosen in North Dakota.

“What I want my goal with this is I’d like to get as many students in here to tour it as possible just because it’s a period of time that happened. We can’t deny that it happened. The reality of it we need to see and I think it’s important for students to see,” Medalen said. She said she has reached out to schools within a 90-mile radius to arrange field trips to the library.

“We are so proud to be selected from a competitive pool of applicants from all across the nation to host this important and powerful exhibition. We encourage community members to come explore it and we’re excited to be partnering with our local schools to host field trips, as well. The exhibition will challenge people to not only ask ‘What would I have done?’ but also, ‘What will I do?'” Medalen said.

“Americans and the Holocaust” will be on display at Heart of America Library from Jan. 11-Feb. 22, 2025.