SAN ANTONIO – Now in its 11th year, The Holocaust Learn and Remember series this year will focus on censorship and how the Nazis used it go seize power.
A new exhibit, “War of Ideas: Nazi Censorship and Book Burning,” will be on display at the Cody Library through Jan. 15 before moving to the Mission Library from Jan. 17-29.
Featured books, materials, exhibits and speakers will lead up to International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27 at the San Antonio Public Library and the Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio.
By delving into a dark period in history, “We’re able to continue to educate and shine a light towards hope for humanity in the future,” said HMMSA Director Leslie Davis Met.
SAPL Director Ramiro Salazar said the program will be available throughout the library system, including branch libraries, as well as the Jewish Community Center at 12500 NW Military Highway.
“We have different times and different locations. So whatever works for the individual,” he said. “There’s a lot of interest in it and we hope to continue to grow it.”
Although it appears San Antonio has been spared the worst of it, Met said antisemitism is at the highest level it’s been in 80 years, prior to World War II.
“It’s an extreme concern,” she said.
But the Holocaust Learn and Remember series can be an effective way to stand up to the hate, Met said.
“We need to become upstander, as we like to say here at the museum, and really educate ourselves and learn from the past towards a brighter, more hopeful future,” Met said.
“We need to be talking more about embracing our differences and becoming united and as one country, one community,” Salazar said.