The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum exists for one purpose above all others: to ensure that the lessons of history's most documented genocide are never forgotten, never sanitized, and never made politically convenient. That mission is now being quietly compromised from within.

Since President Trump returned to office, the museum has removed from its website a page of teaching materials documenting the connections between American racism and the Nazi regime. It renamed a civic education workshop from "Fragility of Democracy and the Rise of the Nazis" to a title that removed any reference to democratic fragility, because of concerns about how the word "fragility" might be perceived in the current political climate. And it canceled that workshop entirely in July 2025, despite the museum recording a $52.4 million increase in net assets that same fiscal year and total assets surpassing $1 billion.

Two former employees told Politico they believed these changes were made preemptively, to avoid drawing negative attention from the Trump administration. One said it seemed like the museum was trying to proactively fall in line so as not to be forced to change. The museum has denied the changes were politically motivated but has not explained why the teaching materials page was removed or why the democracy workshop was canceled despite the museum's strong financial position.

The workshop that was canceled asked students to examine what motivated ordinary Germans to vote for an extremist party in free and fair elections, and what factors strengthened or weakened democracy in 1920s Germany. There is no more important civic question for Americans to be asking right now. The decision to cancel it, and to strip the word democracy from its title before doing so, is not a neutral administrative choice. It is a retreat from the museum's core mission at precisely the moment that mission matters most.

The Holocaust Museum is not a partisan institution. Its lessons belong to everyone. But it receives federal appropriations, and Trump has already purged Biden-appointed board members before the end of their terms and installed political loyalists in their place, including replacing the museum's founding chair with a GOP mega-lobbyist. The conditions for political interference are in place. The evidence that content is changing is documented. And Congress has both the authority and the obligation to act.

Sign this petition to call on Congress to pass legislation protecting the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's editorial independence, demand a full public accounting of every content change made since January 2025, and restore the Fragility of Democracy workshop that was canceled without honest public explanation.