Politico reports:

In the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington quietly removed from its website educational resources about American racism and canceled a workshop about the “fragility of democracy.”

The changes, which have not been previously reported, came as Trump cracked down on what he called “corrosive ideology” at the Smithsonian Institution, demanding a slew of alterations at the world’s largest museum network to more closely align its content with his worldview. They also coincided with the administration’s efforts to remove content related to diversity, equity and inclusion from federal websites.

Unlike his posture toward the Smithsonian, Trump has not publicly commented on the USHMM’s content or publicly called for any modifications. But two former museum employees who left amid the changes told POLITICO they believed the museum was altering its content preemptively, so as to not draw unwanted negative attention from the Trump administration. Both were granted anonymity due to fear of professional retaliation.

“It seems like they were trying to proactively fall in line as to not then be forced to change,” one of the people said.

The museum pulled from its website a page called “Teaching Materials on Nazism and Jim Crow” at some point after Aug. 29, 2025, the last time the page was captured on the Internet Archive. That page provided lesson plans and resources about the connections between American de jure racism and the Nazi regime, including links to sites about “African American Soldiers during World War II” and “Afro-Germans during the Holocaust,” among other topics. [Continue reading…]

The introduction to the now deleted page, Teaching Materials on Nazism and Jim Crow, said:

Although different in many ways, the histories of racism and antisemitism in Nazi Germany and the Jim Crow America during the 1930s illuminate some universal phenomena that manifested during these distinct historical contexts. Both periods can trace part of their roots to the rise of a new “science” of eugenics, which became an international movement used to give legitimacy to racial policies. Racism, including racial antisemitism, was the core element of Nazi ideology and the driving force behind the Holocaust. Racism also legitimized the continued subjugation and persecution of African Americans long after the end of slavery.

Studying these two histories together is neither meant to equate suffering nor gloss over the uniqueness of each historical period. Instead, it raises critical questions for students, educators, and communities today. What cultural, political, and scientific ideologies did leaders use to justify racial segregation and violence? How and why did ordinary people support, comply with, or resist racist and antisemitic policies in these two systems of targeted oppression? Examining these distinct histories can prompt classroom and community discussions with relevant lessons for today.