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Libraries to host opening reception for Holocaust exhibits

The World Knew & Bearing Witness reception poster

The Miami University Libraries will host an opening reception for two new exhibitions in King Library that examine issues and experiences of the Holocaust on Thursday, Nov. 21 at 5:30 p.m. in King 320.

The World Knew: Jan Karski’s Mission for Humanity consists of 22 panels now displayed on the first floor of King Library. On loan from the Polish History Museum in Warsaw, the exhibition details Jan Karski’s life and resistance to Nazi power as well as his experiences as a witness to the Holocaust. As a Polish resistance fighter, Karski risked his life to uncover atrocities committed by Nazi Germany and raise the alarm about the Holocaust by reporting to Allied governments.

Bearing Witness: The Holocaust and Jewish Experience at Miami University examines the global events of the Holocaust through the personal stories of Miami University alumni. Located in the Walter Havighurst Special Collections and University Archives on the third floor of King Library, the exhibition includes original documents and testimonies from Miami alumni who were Holocaust survivors, soldiers, Nazi interrogators, and liberators. The exhibition also explores the experiences of the Miami University Jewish community through the contemporary and wartime diaries of Jewish students and faculty.

The two exhibitions spotlight those who fought to raise the alarm about rising anti-Semitism and the persecution of Jews, and follow the rise of and response to Nazism. Both exhibitions also acknowledge the reverberations of the Holocaust still felt today, as well as current forms of remembrance and Holocaust education on campus and worldwide. The exhibitions are scheduled to run until June 15, 2020.

The World Knew was created by the Polish History Museum in Warsaw in cooperation with The Jan Karski Educational Foundation, sponsorship from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Its exhibition at Miami was sponsored by Hillel at Miami University, Judith A. Heiny and Piotr Chomczynski, and Anna and Marek Dollár.

Bearing Witness was curated by Alia Levar Wegner and Cody Sprunger, with special assistance by Emily Garforth.

Please RSVP for the reception.