Elmhurst University to present noted historian in Holocaust lecture

Daniel Greene, who curated “Americans and the Holocaust,” an exhibition for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., will lecture on the theme at 7:30 p.m. April 16 at Elmhurst University.

His talk is this year’s Holocaust lecture at Elmhurst University, according to a news release. Greene is president of the Newberry Library in Chicago and an adjunct professor of history at Northwestern University. He curated the exhibition before joining the Newberry Library.

In his lecture titled “Americans and the Holocaust,” Greene will discuss the questions explored in the exhibition: What did the American people and the U.S. government know about the threats posed by Nazi Germany, and what could have been done to stop the rise of Nazism in Germany and the assault on Europe’s Jews.

The Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibition, which opened in 2018, led to a book co-edited by Greene and Edward Phillips, “Americans and the Holocaust: A Reader” (2022), which drew from newspaper and magazine articles, popular culture materials, government records and other primary sources to show how Americans debated their role in responding to Nazism. The exhibition also inspired “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” a documentary film directed by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein that aired on PBS in September 2022.

The 7:30 p.m. lecture will be presented in the school’s Founders Lounge of the Frick Center, preceded by a service of remembrance at 7 p.m. Admission is free, but reservations are encouraged at elmhurst.edu/cultural. The center is at 190 S. Prospect Ave. in Elmhurst. For information, email marketing@elmhurst.edu.