“History has taught you nothing if you think you can kill ideas. Tyrants have tried to do that often before, and ideas have risen up in their might and destroyed them.”

— Helen Keller

Yes, that Helen Keller.

This quote is from a 1933 letter she wrote to Nazi university students in Berlin who were gathering books for book burnings. Her books were on the list of books to be burned. They made the list because of her socialist, pacifist and women’s rights activism.

During a visit to Berlin, I was sickened at the site of The Empty Library Memorial. It is in memory of the 20,000 books that were burned at that site.

Visitors look down through glass that is set into the cobblestones. Below the viewer are empty white bookshelves that could contain 20,000 books.

Unfortunately, we cannot sigh i

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