‘Twilight of the Gods’: Defeat, Memory, and Legacy of World War II and the Holocaust

Join us for the final program in a series of expert presentations from Dr. Adam Blackler, Ph.D. and Associate Professor of History at the University of Wyoming, all of which will provide context and historical background for the themes and concepts presented in Americans and the Holocaust, a traveling exhibition for libraries, currently on display.

In 1945, Europe offered a prospect of total misery and anguish. Hitler’s war, unlike previous conflicts, was a near-universal experience for everyone caught in its wake—soldiers and citizens, politicians and peasants, capitalists and communists, women, men, and children. The Nazi revolution had promised a new awakening in Germany. Instead, it brought destruction and death far beyond the borders of Central Europe. An estimated 55 million people died worldwide in World War II. Among them were more than 5 million German soldiers, 27 million Soviet citizens, millions of Poles, and close to 6 million Jews. The list could go on, and the world continues to feel the effects of hatreds sown for the Nazi goals of racial purification and territorial expansion. This lecture will explore how Europeans emerged from the most destructive war in human history on both sides of the so-called Iron Curtain. It will place special emphasis on political and social transformations in Europe between 1945 and 1948, as well as the emergence and proliferation of Holocaust denialism in the world up to the present day.
(Adults; Cottonwood Room)