Submitted Photo Pictured is a description of an exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. A traveling exhibit from that museum will be coming to Rugby in January.

The Heart of America Public Library was selected to host the “Americans and the Holocaust” traveling exhibit from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in January, according to Mandie Medalen, the library’s director.

The exhibit opens Saturday, Jan. 11, with a teacher’s workshop – a six-hour course aimed at educators. On Monday, Jan. 13, the exhibit will be opened to the public at 6:30 p.m. during the opening ceremony. From then until Saturday, Feb. 15, there will be multiple events, speakers, a book discussion and a movie.

The exhibit consists of nine front-and-back panels which outline what was going on in America in the 1930s and 1940s when Adolf Hitler came to power.

It starts by looking at the 1936 Olympics and the Great Depression, which coincided, and explores what was in the newspapers and other media during that time. The exhibit shines a light on what Americans were being told.

Later, the installment explores American’s assistance of refugees fleeing persecution of the Nazi regime in Germany, which later grew to cover large swaths of Europe through Hitler’s campaigns.

As the story told by the exhibit progresses, the question of “Why did Americans go to war?” is answered.

According to Medalen, the Holocaust had less to do with America’s reasons to join the conflict than Japan’s Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Medalen said the exhibit ends by telling the story of the Allied forces’ liberation of those detained in concentration camps.