US Holocaust Memorial Quietly Removed Jim Crow and Nazis Materials to Avoid Political Fallout With Trump

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is facing accusations of self-censorship after reportedly stripping educational resources regarding American racism from its public platforms.

According to a report by Politico, the institution quietly removed long-standing lesson plans and videos that explored the historical connections between the Third Reich's racial laws and the Jim Crow era in the United States. These modifications occurred during President Donald Trump's first year back in office, leading two former employees to suggest that leadership acted pre-emptively to avoid conflict with the administration's stated push against 'corrosive ideologies'.

While a museum spokesperson has officially labelled these allegations 'false', internal emails and web archives reveal a significant shift in the institution's digital and educational footprint. Neither Trump nor the White House had publicly called for modifications to the museum's content. Both former staffers spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they feared professional retaliation.

'It seems like they were trying to proactively fall in line as to not then be forced to change,' one of them said.

At some point after 29 August 2025, the last date the page was captured on the Internet Archive, the museum took down a webpage called 'Teaching Materials on Nazism and Jim Crow.' That page had provided lesson plans exploring connections between American de jure racism and Nazi racial policy. It included links to resources on African American soldiers during the Second World War, Afro-Germans under the Holocaust, and related topics.

A 2018 video hosted on the museum's YouTube channel, a recorded conversation between a Holocaust survivor and a woman whose father was lynched in Alabama, has been made unlisted. The clip can still be reached through a direct URL, but no longer appears on the museum's page.

The removals coincided with a broader push by the Trump administration against what it termed 'corrosive ideology' at the Smithsonian Institution and a government-wide effort to purge diversity, equity, and inclusion material from federal websites. The Holocaust museum, though federally funded, is independent of the Smithsonian.

'Fragility of Democracy' Workshop Scrapped After Name Change

Before cancelling the programme outright, museum leaders first renamed it. A one-day civic education workshop for university students went from 'Fragility of Democracy and the Rise of the Nazis' to 'Before the Holocaust: German Society and the Nazi Rise to Power.' A senior staff member at the museum's Levine Institute for Holocaust Education explained in an internal email, obtained by Politico, that the word fragility had raised 'concerns regarding how the term may be perceived or interpreted in the current climate.'

The programme had been in development since 2020 under the name Civic Learning for Campus Communities. It was piloted in 2024 and was cancelled in July 2025.

A museum employee informed two professors who had been scheduled to host sessions that the cut was down to 'limited federal funds and a difficult fundraising environment.' Privately, though, leadership described it as a matter of 'shifting priorities,' the employee, who has since left the museum, told Politico.

The museum's 2019 own finances, however, showed a different picture. A public financial report showed net assets grew by $52.4 million (£39.6 million) that fiscal year, pushing total assets past $1 billion (£755 million). The museum credited strong donor support.

Marc Carpenter, a history professor at the University of Jamestown who had planned to host the workshop, said the cancellation came as a surprise. 'It just feels like a shame for this to happen in any context,' he told Politico.

Board Overhaul at Holocaust Museum Under Trump

The content shifts came alongside a sustained effort by Trump to reshape the institution's leadership. In April 2025, the president fired several Biden-era appointees from the museum's governing council before their terms had expired. Among those removed were former second gentleman Doug Emhoff, former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, and former domestic policy adviser Susan Rice. No previous president had dismissed sitting members of the council.

Then in March 2026, Trump installed Republican lobbyist Jeffrey Miller as the museum's new chairman, replacing Stuart Eizenstat, who had helped establish the institution decades earlier. Miller, founder of the Washington firm Miller Strategies, has served on the council since 2021, the museum confirmed in a statement.

A museum spokesperson pushed back against the Politico report, saying 'the Trump administration has not requested any changes to the Museum's content or programming' and calling the former employees' allegations 'false.'