This post was provided by News Now Warsaw

By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw

WARSAW — An upcoming expansive five-week traveling exhibition on the Holocaust will arrive at the Warsaw Community Public Library beginning June 20, and organizers are thrilled.

The exhibit will be a multifaceted program that’s sponsored by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Library Association.

The “Americans and the Holocaust, a Traveling Exhibition,” focuses on how Americans came to learn about the Nazi Germany atrocities and how some people worked to aid Jews as they fled Germany and other parts of Europe.

There will be documentaries and panel discussions at the library, and the highlight arrives on June 23 with a presentation by a Holocaust survivor, Irene Miller, at the Warsaw High School Performing Arts Center.

Plans to bring the exhibit to Warsaw began a few years ago, shortly after Library Director Heather Barron was hired in 2023.

“I thought this would be an incredible opportunity for the community — we had two weeks to put this application together. We submitted it, and we were one of 50 libraries to be honored to host the exhibit,” Barron said.

Barron has seen Miller speak previously and was impressed.

“She is a passionate and eloquent speaker — I was so lucky to see her, and now we get to bring her to Warsaw,” Barron said in an interview with News Now Warsaw for this week’s In the Know, a public affairs show aired on Kensington Digital Media radio stations.

Presentations will also feature northern Indiana residents and experts from North Manchester, Purdue Fort Wayne and Vincennes universities.

The library has also been researching local newspapers and other documents to better understand the local connection and role of are resident’s involvement. 

Efforts are being led by Jacob Shriner, the library’s director of the Adult Services Department. Two people, Ken Locke and Bill Smith, have researched local news files and other documents to help better understand how residents learned what had happened.

Word of the atrocities carried out by the Nazis against Jews didn’t begin to trickle out across the world until the mid-1940s.

“There was no formal announcment and we didn’t understand the totality of what was actually happening until the conclusion of the war and the liberation of concentration and death camps in Europe,” Shriner said. “There’s not the width and breadth of information available that we have now, obviously, but it was surprising how much information was available at the time.”

A formal list of events and speakers has not yet been released by the library, but all will be admission-free.

Barron said the Warsaw PAC was chosen to accommodate an expected large crowd and that they expect plenty of interest in individual programs at the library.

“We think this is a rare opportunity that we are very, very honored to bring to the community,” she said.

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