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About the Hiatt Holocaust Collection

COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS

ORIGIN	PURPOSE
FOCUS	ACCESS
DEVELOPMENT	SPECIAL MATERIALS

This site has been sponsored by a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Presidential Discretionary Fund.

ORIGIN

The College of the Holy Cross maintains a substantial collection of Holocaust materials in the Dinand Library. The origins of this collection and the particular interest of the College in the Holocaust date from 1979 when two new wings of the Library were dedicated to the memory of Joshua and Leah Hiatt and all the victims of the Holocaust. The collection is listed in the Directory of Holocaust Institutions published by the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. [TOP]

FOCUS

The holdings, mostly in English, have as their focus the role of the Roman Catholic Church and the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in Holocaust Events. The Collection is rich in items which document the assistance given by Christians to Jewish victims of the Nazis, as well as the opposition to the Nazis shown by Christians during the Nazi years. The persecution of Christians by the Nazis is another special feature of the Holy Cross collection.

One will find works in several languages which look to the relationships between Christians and Jews as they have reference to the Holocaust. Examples of this are the Israeli diplomat, Pinchas E. Lapide's, Three Popes and the Jews (1967) and Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger's, LeChoix de Dieu (1987). [TOP]

PURPOSE

The College of the Holy Cross is the sponsor of what is formally known as the Frances and Jacob Hiatt Collection of Holocaust Materials. It is also the sponsor of an annual commemorative program in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. The College wishes to preserve in memory the six million Jews put to death by the Nazis as it strives to educate continually about the Holocaust that such atrocities might never again occur. [TOP]

ACCESS

The Holocaust Collection at Holy Cross is not set apart in any one place in the Dinand Library. Rather, the published works have been integrated into the general holdings and could previously be located only by searching the library catalogue. With the advent of the World Wide Web we now have the ability to bring our Holocaust collection resources to a more publicly accessible medium.

For information on obtaining access to unpublished and archival materials in the Holocaust Collection please contact the Holocaust Collection Coordinator, Rev. Vincent A. Lapomarda, S.J. at 508 -793 -2769.[TOP]

DEVELOPMENT

The Holocaust Collection is maintained by a Coordinator, with the assistance of the library staff. The Coordinator, the Reverend Vincent A. Lapomarda, S.J., is a member of the Holy Cross History Department whose special interest in the Holocaust has resulted in the publication of, "The Jesuits and the Holocaust," Journal of Church and State (1981) and The Jesuits and the Third Reich, Edward Mellen Press, 1989, and other writings on the subject. The library staff, expert in bibliographic work, aid the Coordinator in acquiring new materials, as well as in overseeing current periodicals such as Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Yad Vashem Studies. [TOP]

SPECIAL MATERIALS

Though published works make up most of its materials, important unpublished documents can be referenced on microfilm. Most pertinent are those relating to the persecution of the churches by the Nazis which were collected by the Reverend Edmund A. Walsh, S.J., the founder of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, and made use of at the Nuremberg Trials. Several works of Edith Stein, the holy scholar and martyr in whose memory the College's Stein Hall was dedicated in 1988, are also included.

Ancillary to the Holocaust Collection itself, but of possible interest to Holocaust researchers, are archival materials from the Walsh Collection, audio visual materials about World War II, documentaries, (including lists of prisoners), papers on the Vatican and the War and records of American attempts to help the Jews. The general holdings of the library, as well as its several facilities, make it a unique resource center for studies on the Holocaust. [TOP]

THE HOLOCAUST

Although "Holocaust" has come to be associated with the Nazi persectuion of the Jew in World War II, its use has a longer history. The arbiter of language in the United States has been Webster's and one will find, for example, on p. 576 of Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, that the word is used only in the third sense of the word. In this sense, it means "the mass slaughter of European civilians and esp. Jews by the Nazis during World War II —- usu. used with the." Consequently, the use of the word in this site allows for it to cover Jews and non-Jews who were victims of the Nazis.


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