A recent trip to Berlin included a historical tour of the city. Since Germany has an impressive and extensive record of reckoning with its past, the tour not surprisingly covered the underground memorial to the 1933 book burning in Bebelplatz, a beautiful and notable center of cultural activity. On May 10, 1933, members of the Nazi German Student Union organized burnings throughout the country of important works of world literature they deemed dangerous. Works by Thomas Mann, Erich Kästner, Stefan Zweig, Heinrich Heine, Karl Marx, Albert Einstein, and Kurt Tucholsky were among those destroyed in Berlin. Many of the authors were Jewish, and for that reason alone, their books were considered unworthy. In fact, Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels pronounced that day in Bebelplatz that “the era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end.”

First, we have two quick reminders: Hungry to Learn

Please make time to watch Hungry to Learn, a documentary about food insecurity on college campuses and the subject of our next kNOw MORE! discussion on Monday, March 22 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. EST