Banned Book Give Away

Books by famous German writers such as Bertolt Brecht and Karl Marx were burned because they conveyed political ideas different from those of the Nazi party. Erich Maria Remarque’s book All Quiet on the Western Front was targeted as “a literary betrayal of the soldiers of the World War.”

The books of American authors such as Ernest Hemingway and Jack London were purged, as were the writings of Helen Keller who championed the rights of the disabled, industrial workers, and women.

Texts by Jewish authors were destroyed, including titles by Heinrich Heine who wrote in his 1820-21 play Almansor, “Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.”

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” – Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut was captured by the Germans during WWII and imprisoned 60 feet under Dresden in a former meat locker and slaughterhouse. He and his fellow POWs survived the firebombing of the city but were ordered to gather the remains of the dead after the inferno. This haunting experience served as the inspiration for his novel Slaughterhouse Five.

In 1973, Charles McCarthy, the head of the school board in Drake, North Dakota, ordered that copies of Slaughterhouse Five be burned in the high school’s furnace. McCarthy’s actions sparked a national outcry. Vonnegut responded with a letter to McCarthy in which he stated, “Perhaps you will learn from this that books are sacred to free men for very good reasons, and that wars have been fought against nations which hate books and burn them. If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.”

People like Charles McCarthy might not burn books today, but they do try to ban books from school and public libraries.

The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom documented 4,240 unique book titles that were targeted for censorship in 2023. This represents a 65% increase compared to 2022. Titles representing the voices and experiences of LGBTQIA and BIPOC individuals accounted for 47% of the censorship attempts. There were attempts to censor more than 100 titles in each of 17 states, including Iowa and Missouri. Click here to learn more about the OIF report.

MCHE supports the freedom to read.

MCHE’s mission is to teach the history of the Holocaust, applying its lessons to counter indifference, intolerance, and genocide. MCHE is committed to applying the lessons of the Holocaust to the world today, which includes the free exchange of ideas, open access to published materials, and civil discussion of conflicting points-of-view.

READ A BANNED BOOK! ENTER TO WIN!

You must be 18 years old to participate in our give-away of challenged and banned books. Minors may have a legal guardian enter on their behalf.

Entry Deadline: Extended through Friday, September 27, 2024. One entry per person please. Book recipients will be selected by random drawing during Banned Books Week and notified during the first week of October.

We are grateful for the donations of banned and challenged books from Monarch Books & Gifts and an anonymous donor who made this program possible.