Hello. I’d like to share information about the Americans and the Holocaust exhibit that was recently at Heart of America Library from January 11 to February 22, 2025. We hope you had the opportunity to visit the exhibit.
The exhibit was made possible through a grant from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Library Association. It was 1,100 square feet of front and back panels with four interactive kiosks and a TV for a video. The information discussed within the exhibit was a small portion, about a 20% snapshot, of what is in the AATH exhibit at the USHMM in Washington, D.C.
We offered school tours to all schools in a 90 mile radius of Rugby and beyond. We also hosted different speakers and events in the evening and on weekends throughout the exhibit. Some of our great speakers were Dr. Zahra Moss from Dakota College at Bottineau; Drs. Raman Sachdev and Amanda Watts from Minot State University; Dr. Kimberly Porter, Professor Emerita from University of North Dakota; Susie Greenberg from the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas; Hayley Prihoda from the USHMM; and Terry Jelsing and Dale Niewohner both of Rugby. We had approximately 325 people come to these events.
The school tours were the highlight of the exhibit for me. Our main goal with the exhibit was to bring a small piece of Washington, D.C., a small piece of history, here in Rugby, ND for students to have an opportunity to experience something like this; students who otherwise would not have this opportunity. We were hopeful that it would create opportunities for discussion, not only in the classroom, but also at home.
We hosted 21 different schools from our area with 64 guided tours of approximately 1140 students in grades 6 – 12 over the course of the 6 weeks the exhibit was here. Schools right here in town, and an hour away, made time to visit the exhibit. We even had one school drive 2 hours (approx. 117 miles one way) so 9 students could have the opportunity for a guided tour and time to explore the exhibit. What a wonderful testament to how important the exhibit is and how fortunate we were to have this opportunity.
We had 7 schools that brought all of their students in grades 7 – 12. Some of these schools had teachers that attended the Teacher Workshop with Hayley Prihoda on January 11. They shared the valuable information they learned and encouraged their school administration to bring all high school students to the exhibit. We had a couple of teachers who had their students do an associated assignment while here and even used the Group Exploration worksheet from the USHMM teacher resources.
Some of the schools scheduled their tours for the 11am time slot. Because of being in the middle of the school day, a few schools stuck around and had lunch in Rugby. One went to Cenex, another made a reservation at Dakota Farms, others parked the bus on the frontage road and let the students go to DQ or Subway.
The way we set up the exhibit, it covered two rooms. We had an area in one of the rooms that we set up chairs and the smart TV where we played the First-Person conversation videos from the USHMM website. We started with a different year each day to make sure each video had an opportunity to play, there are 40 videos in all on the website. This was very popular with students and community members. Many visiting teachers asked about the videos and using them in their classroom. We shared where to find them and hopefully they are being utilized by our area teachers.
Some schools/classes took pictures after the tour and shared them to our Facebook page. Hopefully you have had an opportunity to see these posts.
In addition to the schools that toured, we had 2 libraries in the area, Michigan and Cando Public Libraries, that got groups together to come visit the exhibit. We guided about 20 people between the two library groups. While in town the groups went to Rockin Relics and stopped by Main Street Boutique. What a great way to get out of town for a while, enjoy lunch, shop, and embrace a bit of history.
We even had the Haaland Estates bring a group to tour the exhibit. We enjoyed having the 11 residents here for the 2.5 hour visit where they could take their time and visit about what they were reading on the panels.
Originally, I had planned on having the teachers be the docents for their own class but then decided to change course. We recruited local volunteers to be docents. We started with 19 people that raised their hand and went through the training, but when the time came, we had 9 steadfast volunteers who gave their time to guide students through the exhibit. I’d like to highlight a couple of them for you.
Rachel and Sarah are a mother and daughter duo who guided together. Sarah is homeschooled and very interested in the WWII time period and quickly volunteered to be a docent. Her mom wanted to work with her because many of the students they were guiding would be the same age or older and she wanted Sarah to feel comfortable. This worked out well.
Carol is a retired elementary school teacher, and she thrived in this setting. She ended up giving tours to almost 400 of the students. She also made plans with some of her friends to give them tours of the exhibit. She came back and gave at least 4 more tours outside of the school tours for friends and anyone who wanted to join them.
Chelsea attended the teacher workshop and asked if she could be the docent for the students from TGU. She made a special point of being here the 2 days that TGU had signed up for tours and was even interviewed by the local newspaper. There is an article about the exhibit from one of the days she was here in The Pierce County Tribune.
We could not have done this without the help of volunteers. We are so thankful for their willingness to step in and step up.
The Heart of America Library is an important resource to our community and we look forward to offering more experiences like this in the future.
~Heart of America Library Staff & Board~
Heart of America Library 