Tag Archives: WWII

Notes from the Littell Project: Holocaust Remembrance

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Franklin H. Littell lays flowers at European Memorial

Among his many accomplishments as a scholar, educator, and Methodist preacher, Franklin H. Littell (1917-2009) spent the better part of fifty years dedicated to increasing public awareness about the lessons of the Holocaust and interfaith cooperation between Christians and Jews in its continued remembrance. Littell was a pioneer in establishing academic programs on Holocaust studies. He taught a graduate seminar on the Holocaust at Emory University in 1959, and established a doctoral program at Temple University in 1976. In the 1970s, Littell also established conferences such as the Annual Scholars Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, an interdisciplinary, international, interfaith conference on Holocaust scholarship; and centers like the National Institute on the Holocaust at Temple University, an interfaith education resource center that encouraged study of the Holocaust in primary and secondary classrooms. In 1978, Littell was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to serve on the Presidential Commission on the Holocaust, later renamed the US Holocaust Memorial Council, which conceptualized the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC as a permanent living memorial.

With increased public discourse initiated by Holocaust scholars like Littell, observances and remembrance activities in commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust were established on both a national and international scale. In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly designated January 27 , International Holocaust Remembrance Day¬ as an annual international day of commemoration. The date, January 27, marks the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of the largest Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau by Soviet troops.

 

2014 International Holocaust Remembrance Day events in Philadelphia:

American-Italy Society of Philadelphia:

http://tinyurl.com/nzjopuy

Congregation Mikveh Israel:

http://tinyurl.com/ncxztj7

Consulate General of Italy in Philadelphia:

http://tinyurl.com/q42yar6

On February 10, 2014, a new exhibition will open in Paley Library, featuring selections from Franklin Littell’s extensive collection of papers in Temple Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center. The exhibition will showcase Littell’s life and work including his Holocaust Remembrance activities.

Jessica Lydon, Associate Archivist, and Courtney Smerz, Project Archivist

Notes from the Littell Project: A 1949 Sojourn in Soviet-occupied Germany

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As a result of his growing knowledge of the harsh realities of the Holocaust and World War II, following the war, Franklin Littell went to work in the Religious Affairs branch of the Office of Military Government in U.S. occupied Germany. He served as a religious advisor to the U.S. Government, specializing in Germany’s protestant churches, and he was also a leader in the growing Christian lay movement there (more on those activities later). As a result of his work and position, from time to time he was afforded the opportunity to travel into Soviet-occupied Germany. The following are portions of a letter written home about his experience the first time he made this journey in 1949.

 

 

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Courtney Smerz, Project Archivist

Franklin H. Littell was Temple faculty member and scholar of religious history, whose focus lay in the history of sects and of Christian/Jewish relations.  He also brought world-wide attention to the importance of studying the Holocaust and its causes, and a large percentage of the more than 400 linear feet of papers (think the equivalent of 50 four-drawer filing cabinets) document that work.  This is one of the occasional posts about what we’re finding as we preserve and organize the collection for research use.

 

Notes from the Littell Project: Adventures of a CO during WWII

History News, , ,

Read a transcription of this letter.

Neither Franklin Littell nor his brother, Wallace, fought in World War II (though both would later participate in the rebuilding of Germany, during the American Occupation). Instead, Franklin completed his education at Yale, and Wallace registered as a conscientious objector.
As a CO, Wallace—“Pickle,” for short—considered many options for service. While awaiting acceptance into the Civilian Public Service, he explored working abroad with the American Friends Service Committee as well as programs at Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges. He spent time in Philadelphia working at the Friends Neighborhood Guild, while also looking for work as an ambulance driver. Leaving Philadelphia, he hitchhiked across the US, making many stops, including several National Parks and to work as a farm hand in Montana. He eventually made his way to a Civilian Public Service camp in South Dakota. Moving between CPS camps out west, he worked as a “smoke jumper,” parachuting out of airplanes to extinguish forest fires.
There are many letters from Wallace in the collection, chronicling his experiences as a CO as well as his later work in the Foreign Service. The letter pictured here was written in April 1943, before he was accepted to the Civilian Public Service. In it, he discusses some of his options for government sanctioned alternative service work during the war.

–Courtney Smerz, Project Archivist