U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum USHMM

In 1978 President Jimmy Carter created the President's Commission on the Holocaust, chaired by the writer and survivor Elie Wiesel, which recommended a national memorial museum. Congress unanimously passed a law signed on October 7, 1980, establishing the United States Holocaust Memorial Council to build and run it. The museum, built with private donations on federal land next to the National Mall, was dedicated on April 22, 1993. The Council includes members appointed by the President and members of Congress.

The museum documents the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews and millions of other victims by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, through a permanent exhibition, archives, survivor testimonies, and one of the world's largest collections of Holocaust materials. Admission is free. It has welcomed tens of millions of visitors, and its online encyclopedia reaches millions more around the world. Its research center supports scholars, and its genocide prevention center studies warning signs of mass atrocities today. Federal appropriations fund much of its operations, supplemented by private gifts.

The museum also leads the national annual Days of Remembrance observance and trains military officers, police, judges, and diplomats on the lessons of the Holocaust. In 2025 the President removed several Council members appointed by his predecessor and named new ones, as presidents have the authority to do. Supporters of the changes said a new administration is entitled to its own appointees, while some critics worried that political shifts could affect an institution meant to stand apart from partisan debate.