COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — Columbus Public Library is hosting a free Americans and the Holocaust exhibit brought to you by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The exhibit is on a national tour of all fifty states and Columbus Public Library is one of two places it will be held in Georgia.

This installation features World War Two artifacts from the Columbus Museum as well as a banner exhibit from the Georgia Commission called Georgia’s Response to the Rise of Nazism. It features stories of 16 prominent Georgians who were either refuges from the concentration camps or those who helped serve as liberators. An array of interactive kiosks are available that allow visitors to view newspaper articles across the country on the holocaust as well as short films.  

The programming coordinator for Chattahoochee Valley Libraries, Henry McCoy spoke with WRBL about the details of the exhibit.

“We are so honored to be hosting Americans in the Holocaust. This is an exhibit brought to us from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and it purports to ask two questions What did Americans know about the rise of Nazi ism and what more could be done?”

Mccoy goes on to say, “This exhibit shows many examples of what Americans did or did not know during the 1920s and 1930s, as the Nazi Party was rising to power in Germany and then it asks the viewer to help think of what more could have been done to save some of the millions of people who were exterminated in the concentration camps in Germany and in Europe during World War II.”

The Americans and the Holocaust Exhibit will be featured at the Columbus Public Library until August 18th.