News Release
Schwab Family Holocaust Reading Room dedicated
June 22, 2007
Linda Schwab
With the creation of the Schwab Family Holocaust Reading Room, Penn State Harrisburg now has a visible centerpiece in its effort to establish the first Holocaust Study Center in the region.
A community and University focal point for Holocaust education, the Schwab Family Holocaust Reading Room is the result of a generous donation from Harrisburg resident Linda Schwab and the late Morris Schwab.
Dedicated in formal ceremonies June 7, the Reading Room in the first floor of the college library creates a resource devoted to the study of the Holocaust and preservation of local connections to it.
"The Schwab Family Reading Room will serve as a living memorial," said Penn State Harrisburg Chancellor Madlyn L. Hanes. "The Reading Room is unique in its design and purpose. Within this space, varied communities can gather together for inquiry into history, culture, art, ethics, and politics."
She continued, "The impact of the Reading Room on our students will be profound. For many of our students, the room will expose them — perhaps for the first time in their lives — to the Holocaust and gives them the opportunity to study, internalize, and forever hold the lessons of the Holocaust as they leave us to become our community’s future leaders and decision makers."
Among those attending the dedication were area residents who have financially supported the Holocaust Center initiative. To those friends of the college, Dr. Hanes said, "We treasure the partnership we have with you as we advance this vision to place the rich history and culture of the Jewish community in Central Pennsylvania within the broad, interdisciplinary study of the Holocaust, its context and its consequences, its people — all of which have shaped and continue to shape American life and culture..."
The Reading Room includes materials from Penn State Harrisburg’s extensive Holocaust and Genocide Collection of books and other media, now totaling more than 1,000 titles, and provides space for gallery presentations of art and documents of the Holocaust and Jewish experience. The collection is the largest specifically devoted to Holocaust studies in Central Pennsylvania.
The Reading Room’s video and audio recordings of survivors, liberators, and witnesses in Central Pennsylvania will allow visitors to learn about local connections to the Holocaust, while special collections, exhibits, documents, and oral histories will provide additional perspectives. The Room’s collection will grow as additional interviews and documents with Central Pennsylvania survivors, children of survivors, and liberators are added with ongoing special projects and coursework.
Chancellor Madlyn Hanes, Linda Schwab, and Dr. Simon Bronner officially open the Schwab Family Holocaust Reading Room.
"The Holocaust Study Center will bring the University and the community together in a common interest in remembering and teaching," said Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Folklore Simon Bronner, the son of Holocaust survivors and one of the founding members of the Second Generation Group in Harrisburg.
"It will create programs that may include teacher training, film screenings, and lectures with the overall purpose of raising awareness about the Holocaust. It will serve as a research and training space for faculty, the community, and students and will establish a creative location where the public can be inspired by music, literature, and art."
Dr. Bronner continues, "As the name implies, it centers many activities in the University and community in a single, visible place. It will bring together people and ideas related to the Holocaust who may otherwise be isolated in various academic departments or community institutions."
The Holocaust awareness and education effort at Penn State Harrisburg intensified in the mid-1990s when a group of donors led by Abe Cramer and his family created the Holocaust and Genocide Book Collection in the library, permitting the college to expand its Holocaust studies curriculum. The college has also offered study tours on the Holocaust to Poland and Germany and hosted a Holocaust Studies Institute for schoolteachers in the region.
The first major gift toward creating the Reading Room came in 2002 from Professor of Information Systems Gayle Yaverbaum and her husband Harry. That was followed by substantial support from Nancy and Irwin Aronson to create a permanent endowment to support Holocaust education with programming for lectures, national and international study tours, and student scholarships to offset the cost of their participation.
Morris Schwab, who passed away in December 2006, was CEO of Credential Leasing Corp. and D & H Distributing Company and a 1940 Penn State graduate with a bachelor's degree in Arts and Letters. He was active with the University's Alumni Association and in 1994 received its first Outstanding Alumni Council Member Award. His wife, Linda, is a Holocaust survivor.
In addition to giving generously to Penn State Harrisburg, through their family foundation and personal giving, the Schwabs have been steadfast supporters of many facets of the University, including athletics, the College of the Liberal Arts, the Palmer Museum of Art, and the Hintz Alumni Center.