Holocaust exhibit traveling to Upper library

UPPER SANDUSKY — A story broke in 2023 that an Upper Sandusky-area couple was homeschooling their children using a neo-Nazi curriculum. Residents of the Wyandot County city, including staff at the Upper Sandusky Community Library were shocked, said Krystal Smalley, marketing and social media coordinator. "Because I do programming here, I was like OK, what can we do to address this because it seemed like maybe the community was missing out on some Holocaust education," she said. Just a year later, the library was selected as one of 50 libraries across the country to host "Americans and the Holocaust," a traveling exhibition from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Library Association. The exhibit — which opens today — examines the motives, pressures and fears that shaped Americans' responses to Nazism, war and genocide in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. "We wanted to be able to provide this to people locally to give them access to this kind of thing because the 'Americans and the Holocaust' exhibit is a smaller version of the one you can actually find at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum," Smalley said. What makes the exhibit even more interesting is its focus on Americans responded to the Holocaust, specifically between 1933-45, she said. All of the programming is directly related to that, according to Smalley. This isn't the first time the library has put together an exhibit focused on the Holocaust. In 2023, Smalley's co-worker Patti Davidson read "The Daughter of Auschwitz," a memoir by Tova Friedman, one of the youngest survivors of the German Nazi concentration camp and extermination center. The book inspired Davidson, who is deputy fiscal officer/technology coordinator at the library, to follow Friedman's words as she said she'd been speaking about the Holocaust most of her adult life to make sure people never forget. Davidson collaborated with adult programming and display coordinator Rachel Keirns-Moore to create a display that featured a timeline, pictures and museum pieces — in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day which is observed each year in January. Later that same month came the news that an Upper Sandusky couple was running a Telegram group connecting other parents in Nazi-based homeschooling. The library decided that the community would be better served to view the display for a longer period of time, said Smalley. It remained up for about two months, and visitors came in specifically to see the exhibit. Smalley also started a Google search and stumbled upon the Nancy and David Wolf Holocaust and Humanity Center in Cincinnati. "They have a speaker's bureau. It's such a great speaker's bureau, so many people. They are actual Holocaust survivors and there's second and third generation family members who tell the story of their family members who survived the Holocaust," she said. They made connections with the center and asked for a speaker, who turned out to be Henry Fenichel. Smalley said he was very young when the Holocaust happened. Although the three-hour drive from Cincinnati was too much for him, Fenichel did a Zoom visit with the library. "He told us the story of how his family escaped the Holocaust and they ended up immgrating to Israel. Then he came to Cincinnati," she said. Fenichel became a professor at the University of Cincinnati and joined the speaker's bureau once he retired, she said. "The community had a great response to his talk," she said. "I think this is what they were wanting. They recognized how this homeschooling network is not how we're going to be represented." Smalley later received a library-related email talking about different kinds of programs available. At the time, the Holocaust Memorial Museum was looking for libraries to sign up for their second tour of Americans and the Holocaust. "I was like, this sounds awesome. We have the kind of story that I think would work for bringing this in here," said Smalley. Letters of recommendation came from area organizations, Upper Sandusky City Council, the Wyandot County Commissioners, the library's board of trustees and the Upper Sandusky School Board. In January 2024, the library was selected as a host site. "And that's one of 50 libraries across the entire United States," Smalley said. "What makes this even more interesting is the number of libraries that are actually in the United States. There are 17,000 libraries across the entire United States and something like 6,000 library systems. When you take it into account, we were one of the lucky ones to be able to host it." Since then, the staff has been busy getting programs together and training volunteers and docents. The 1,100-square-foot, 18-panel exhibition examines various aspects of American society — the government, the military, refugee aid organizations, the media and the general public. Drawing on a collection of primary sources from the 1930s and 1940s, the exhibition tells the stories of Americans who acted in response to Nazism, challenging the commonly held assumptions that Americans knew little and did nothing about the Nazi persecution and murder of Jews as the Holocaust unfolded. The exhibit is set up in the large meeting room downstairs. A recreation of a 1940s living room has been set up on the first floor where visitors can flip through scrapbooks of newspaper articles that were published in the local Daily Chief Union during that time. The library has extended its Saturday hours to give people more time to visit. Instead of closing at 1 p.m., the library will remain open until 5 p.m. Schedule of programs • Aug. 22: "The Plot Against America," 2 p.m., library boardroom. Professor Leslye Friedberg will screen the first episode of the HBO miniseries produced by David Simon and Ed Burns and based on the novel of the same name by Philip Roth. "A Night at the Garden" by Marshall Curry and a discussion of both films will follow. • Aug. 24: Opening reception, 11 a.m., library boardroom. Krystal Smalley and co-director Patti Davidson will welcome the community to a reception which will share remarks along with Roy Büchler, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Federation of Greater Toledo. • Aug. 26: "The Daughter of Auschwitz: A Memoir" by Tova Friedman, book discussion, 6 p.m., library boardroom. Physical copies of the book will be available at the library. It is also available as an ebook and audiobook on Libby and hoopla. • Aug. 27: "American POWs in Hitler's Camps," 6 p.m., Trinity Evangelical Church's Student Life Center, 108 Malabar Drive. Patti Davidson will discuss the experiences of American POWs who ended up in various concentration camps rather than prisoner of war camps. She will also focus on the differing treatment of Protestant and Jewish POWs, as well as what the American government and public knew about the status of their POWs and actions taken. • Aug. 29: "The Mortal Storm" film screening, 2 p.m., library boardroom. This 1940 feature film is based on Phyllis Bottome's novel of the same name and stars James Stewart, Margaret Sullivan and Frank Morgan. The story follows a German family as they are divided by the Nazi regime. A discussion will follow. • Sept. 2: "They Called Us Enemy" by George Takei, book discussion, 2 p.m., library boardroom. A graphic memoir recounts Takei's experiences as a child who was imprisoned in American concentration camps alongside his family during World War II. The book directly aligns with the exhibition and addresses a period of American history that is not often discussed. Physical copies of the book will be available at the library. The discussion is ideal for adults and students in fifth grade and up. • Sept. 3: "Concentration Camp Survivors to American War Brides," 6 p.m., Trinity Evangelical Church's Student Life Center, 108 Malabar Drive. Local historian Bonnie Eyestone will discuss her research, based on the book "Between Two Worlds" by Robin Judd. She will focus on the stories of survivor experiences, as well as policies on American immigration, war brides and travel. • Sept. 9: "Address Unknown" by Kathrine Kressman Taylor, 6 p.m., library board room. The novella follows two friends, one an art dealer in San Francisco and the other his former business partner who returned to Germany just as Hitler came to power, as they deal with the spread of Nazism through a series of letters. Physical copies of the book will be available at the library. • Sept. 12: "Nazi Town, USA," 10 a.m., library boardroom. Patti Davidson will screen the PBS American Experience documentary. The documentary tells the largely unknown story of the German American Bund, which established chapters across the country, held rallies alongside the Ku Klux Klan and ran summer camps for children centered on Nazi ideology. The Bund's anti-Semitism mixed with "Americanism" raised issues that are still being faced today. A discussion will follow. • Sept. 23: "The Complete Maus" by Art Spiegelman, 6 p.m., library boardroom. The book tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Holocaust survivor and the author's father, in a graphic novel format that takes readers through the Holocaust and what happens to the survivors and families in the aftermath decades later. A discussion follows. Physical copies of the book will be available at the library. • Sept. 24: Melissa W. Hunter will tell the story of her grandmother, Holocaust survivor Sala Werthaiser, 6 p.m. Trinity Evangelical Church, 108 Malabar Drive. Werthaiser was forced, along with her family, into the Olkusz Ghetto. She was later deported to Auschwitz and survived six other concentration camps before being liberated in 1945.