Hawkeyes and the Holocaust: What Did Iowans Know

The library is happy to welcome Dr. Jeremy Best of Iowa State University on Sunday, April 10, at 2:00pm in the Community Meeting Rooms. He will be presenting his talk, titled Hawkeyes and the Holocaust: What Did Iowans Know.

What of the Holocaust did the Hawkeye State “see” during World War II?

In summer 1941, German-led killing squads began the mass murder of Jewish people in occupied Soviet territories. In fall 1941, SS-supervised work crews began building extermination camps for the murder of Polish Jews. In March 1942, the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau was established. Within a year - by spring 1943, 75% of the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust will be dead.

What did Iowans, 5,000 miles or more away know about these events? What could they have known? What did they do with the knowledge they had? In his talk, Jeremy Best, professor of history at Iowa State University, will explain how knowledge of the Holocaust reached Iowa, when it reached Iowa, and how Iowans responded.

This program is a part of the library's Americans and the Holocaust exhibition, which is a traveling exhibition from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The exhibition will be at the library from Saturday, March 26 through Friday, May 6. For more information, please visit https://www.marshalltownlibrary.org/americans-and-the-holocaust-exhibition/.