By Robert Williams and Mark Weitzman

Antisemitism is an ancient hatred, but it still plagues our society and can hide in plain sight. For too long, people relied on subjective approaches to identify it — they felt it in their bones. But antisemitism is too big a problem: one needs to define it in order to counter it.

US President Joe Biden administration’s embrace of the non-legally binding Working Definition of Antisemitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) makes it the third administration to support this definition. As chair and past chair of the IHRA antisemitism committee, and as…

Josephine Baker, an American vaudeville performer turned glittering star of Paris, was at the peak of her fame in 1939 when the Nazi regime began its stranglehold on Europe. But then came an offer that changed her life.

Like Baker, Virginia Hall, an American who lost a leg in a hunting accident, and Noor Inayat Khan, a Muslim pacifist, weren’t prototypical spies. And that was exactly the point. In this digital program marking Women’s History Month, learn how they turned prejudice and society’s low expectations of women into weapons that hid their critical work to defeat the Nazis.

Racial discrimination and lynchings in America did not discourage James Baldwin from serving his country. As part of the 784th Tank Battalion, he helped free the Dutch from German occupation. Sgt. Leon Bass and his unit proudly bore witness to the Nazi atrocities in the Buchenwald concentration camp after it was liberated, even though they were treated as second-class citizens in the segregated US Army. The “Double-V” campaign encouraged Black Americans to join the war effort by advocating victory against fascism abroad, and against racism at home.

In this digital program marking Black History Month, we honor Black Americans who served.

Sam and Regina Spiegel found love in the most unlikely of places — at a forced labor camp in German-occupied Poland. For Gad Beck and Manfred Lewin, their affection put the young Jewish men at a greater risk, so they kept their forbidden relationship a secret. Even in the darkest hours of the Holocaust, love gave many a reason to hope for a better future, the will to survive, and inspiration to rebuild after the war.

In this digital program, Museum historians discuss how love became an act of resistance for people persecuted by the Nazi regime.

While Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower had studied his World War II enemy, he was unprepared for the Nazi brutality he witnessed at Ohrdruf concentration camp in April 1945. Bodies were piled like wood and living skeletons struggled to survive. Even as the Allied Forces continued their fight, Eisenhower foresaw a day when the horrors of the Holocaust might be denied. He invited the media to document the scene. He compelled Germans living in the surrounding towns and any soldier not fighting at the front to witness the atrocities for themselves.

In this digital program on International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2021, Susan Eisenhower talked about her grandfather’s vigilance to preserve the truth of the Holocaust, among the topics covered in her most recent book, How Ike Led: The Principles Behind Eisenhower’s Biggest Decisions.

Recent events remind us of the ever-present dangers of hatred and propaganda. Some individuals throughout history and today have embraced hate, and even murder, to fulfill their own needs.”

Personal grievances and hardship drove nurse Pauline Kneissler to become a member of the Nazi Party in 1937. Peer pressure eventually influenced her to kill on behalf of the German government. A half century later, loneliness and bullying left American Christian Picciolini vulnerable to a white supremacist organization, which encouraged him to channel his emotions into hate and violence against Jews and other minority groups.

On January 13, 2021, amid a rise in antisemitic incidents and extremism more than 75 years after the Holocaust, experts discussed the reasons why some people in search of belonging use racism, conspiracy theories, and antisemitic lies to justify hate and violence.

In 1944, 12-year-old Steven Fenves and his family were forced from their home in Subotica, Yugoslavia, into a Jewish ghetto. While neighbors turned against them and looted their home, their former cook, Maris, rescued their treasured family artwork and recipes. These cherished items offer a glimpse into one family’s life before it was shattered by the Holocaust.

In this digital program, Steven, a Holocaust survivor and Museum volunteer, and James Beard Award–winning Chef Alon Shaya talk about family recipes and their connections to childhood memories and Holocaust history.

At age 27, in his first turn as a prosecutor, Benjamin Ferencz led what was then called “the biggest murder trial in history.” On behalf of the US government, he won guilty verdicts against 22 Nazi leaders of mass shooting operations that murdered over a million Jews. The Nuremberg Trials, which began 75 years ago this month, aimed to achieve a measure of justice for the unimaginable scale of Holocaust and war crimes. Ben, now 100, has devoted his life to pursuing peace, demanding justice for victims, and preventing genocide.

In this digital program, learn Ben’s inspiring story and why his motto is: “Never give up.”