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AHOSKIE – Roanoke-Chowan Community College’s (R-CCC) Library is one of 50 libraries across the United States selected to host Americans and the Holocaust, a traveling exhibition from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Library Association (ALA) that examines the motives, pressures and fears that shaped Americans’ responses to Nazism, war and genocide in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s.

Following a highly successful tour to libraries from 2021 to 2023, the touring library exhibition— based on the special exhibition of the same name at the Museum in Washington, D.C. — will travel to an additional 50 U.S. libraries from 2024 to 2026, covering wide distances from Hawaii and Alaska to Texas and New Hampshire.

“We are so proud to be selected from a competitive pool of applicants from all across the nation to host this important and powerful exhibition,” said R-CCC Library Director Carol Anne Hankinson. “Our library is scheduled to receive the exhibition in 2026. This will give us the opportunity to plan and partner with our local schools and community as well as the North Carolina Holocaust Speakers Bureau so that we may offer our area an informed and meaningful experience. The exhibition will challenge people to not only ask ‘what would I have done?’ but also, ‘what will I do?’”

Americans and the Holocaust will be on display at R-CCC’s Library, along with a series of related special events, from Aug. 19 – Sept. 30, 2026.

“We are so pleased to be hosting the Americans and the Holocaust traveling exhibition in just two years from now. Our hope is that people in our communities far and wide will take the opportunity to visit our campus and take in all that the exhibit offers. This exhibit will share valuable information about our past and help us determine our steps for the future,” said R-CCC President Dr. Murray J. Williams.

The 1,100-square-foot exhibition examines various aspects of American society: the government, the military, refugee aid organizations, the media and the public. Drawing on a remarkable collection of primary sources from the 1930s and ’40s, 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. It provides a portrait of American society that shows how the Depression, isolationism, xenophobia, racism and antisemitism shaped responses to Nazism and the Holocaust.

In addition to the traveling exhibition on loan, the R-CCC Library received a $3,000 cash grant to support public programs. The grant also covered Hankinson’s attendance at a two-day orientation workshop at the Museum.

For more information about Americans and the Holocaust and related programming at the R-CCC Library, visit https://libguides.roanokechowan.edu/home. To learn more about the exhibition, visit ushmm.org/americans-ala.

Contact Hankinson at 252-862-1240 for more information.