Gray Fitzgerald lives in Concord and was formerly a United Church of Christ pastor.

I knew about the book burnings in Nazi Germany.

It’s embarrassing, but I have to confess: I didn’t really understand the purpose of the book burnings until reading the Tuesday article in the Monitor entitled, “Dems: Halt book purge.” The article sent me on an internet search that gave me an AI synopsis of what the Nazi book burnings were about and their purpose.

Paraphrasing Google, the book burnings in Nazi Germany were a form of cultural genocide to destroy books — and the thoughts and ideas they contained— that were believed to be subversive to Nazi ideology. The Nazis organized the book burnings to publicly destroy these books that represented ideologies opposed to the Nazi regime.

The books targeted included those by Jewish authors, communists, socialists, pacifists and liberal authors, among others. A few of the authors included Karl Marx, Helen Keller, and Albert Einstein. The book burnings were intended to suppress dissenting voices and beliefs in order to establish Nazi control over the culture and thought. The purpose was to erase any parts of the culture or thought that were not consistent with Nazi ideology.

The article in the Monitor that precipitated my search was about how, recently, authorities at the U.S. Naval Academy library had removed hundreds of books that promoted diversity, equity and inclusion. Four hundred volumes were removed on topics including racism, gender identity and the Holocaust. Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngeloand Janet Jacobs’s “Memorializing the Holocaust: Genocide and Collective Memory” were a few of the books removed.

This was a quiet, fireless book burning, but with the same motivations as the Nazis, that of suppressing dissenting voices and beliefs to establish control over culture and thought. It is an attempt to erase parts of culture and thought not consistent with President Trump’s ideology.

Recently, Trump has been taking his goals of erasing parts of our culture offensive to him to the Smithsonian Institute. He has put out an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” His view is that the national museum’s way of telling American history is “racist, sexist, oppressive or otherwise irredeemably flawed.” He asserts that certain parts of the museum had “come under the influence of a divisive, race- centered ideology” and promotes “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”

We don’t know exactly how the Trump administration will change the Smithsonian, but what we can be sure of is that it is going to attempt to erase parts of our culture and who we are. If he is successful, it will be the equivalent of more book burnings.

Trump calls his attack on the Smithsonian “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The Washington Post has reported that, “By the end of his [first] term, Trump had accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency — averaging about 21 erroneous claims a day.” Given his history, we can be certain Trump will not be restoring truth to the Smithsonian. He will be adding to his untruths.

State legislatures, including the New Hampshire legislature, are also involved in book burning. The legislatures of this and other states have written extremely ambiguous laws implying that, if teachers teach certain concepts, they will be terminated and lose their licenses to teach in New Hampshire. These laws are not precise about exactly what is not permitted, so teachers are unable to determine what they may be disciplined for. It appears that part of what these laws are designed to do is to keep teachers from teaching about subjects related to race, gender and religion.

I haven’t read it, but there is a relatively new book entitled “Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future.” That is what these book burnings are about. They are an attempt to control the country and the country’s future.