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<\/a>As we enter the Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust and Yom Hashoah, the Special Collections Research Center<\/a> asked Natasha Goldman, Research Associate and Adjunct Lecturer in Art History at Bowdoin College, to share her recent experiences at the SCRC and the connections she made that led to Temple\u2019s acquisition of a previously \u201chidden collection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Goldman writes: \u201cIn 2011, I started research on Nathan Rapoport\u2019s Monument to the Six Million Martyrs (1964), arguably the first public Holocaust memorial in the US, located in Philadelphia at the corner of 16th St., Arch St. and Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Designed by artist Nathan Rapoport, famous for his Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Monument (1948), the sculpture has largely been ignored in the literature of Holocaust memory in the US.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Abram Shnaper, a Holocaust survivor, had initiated the monument\u2019s commission on the behalf of the Association of Jewish New Americans, a Philadelphia survivor organization that he had founded in 1954. Together with the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, the groups raised $47,000 for the monument. Shnaper painstakingly documented the entire process, from raising funds, to writing letters to the artist, to sending telegrams to Israel to invite Israeli officials to the dedication ceremony. When I visited him in his home in 2011, Shnaper conveyed to me his wish that the documents stay in Philadelphia, close to the monument. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n After Shnaper\u2019s passing, I visited his collection once again, this time at the offices of his son-in-law. I also visited the Temple University Libraries\u2019 Special Collections Research Center, where I found the documents of the Jewish Community Relations Council\u2014including files relating to the committee responsible for the monument in the decade after its installation. When Shaper\u2019s son-in-law asked me where he should donate Abe\u2019s papers, I immediately knew that Temple University would be the best home for his collection. It was Shnaper’s greatest wish that young people learn about the Holocaust so as to pass on the legacy of the six million and of the survivors. Finally, students at Temple University and scholars from near and far have direct access to these rich primary documents. They demonstrate the dedication of diverse Jewish communities to create one of the earliest US Holocaust monuments in public space.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Acquired by the SCRC in 2014, the Abram Shnaper Papers on the Monument to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs are open and available for research. View the online finding aid<\/a> or catalog record <\/a>for a description of the collection\u2019s contents and to request access to the materials in the SCRC reading room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Natasha Goldman\u2019s article on Rapaport\u2019s memorial, \u201cNever bow your head, be helpful, and fight for justice and righteousness: Nathan Rapoport and Philadelphia\u2019s Holocaust Memorial (1964),\u201d will be published in the Summer 2016 in the Journal of Jewish Identities<\/a><\/em>, issue 9, number 2. The article will also appear in her forthcoming book, Holocaust Memorials in the United States and Germany: From Grass-Roots Movements to National Debates<\/em> (under advance contract; Temple University Press<\/a>, Spring 2017).<\/p>\n\n\n\n — Jessica M. Lydon, Associate Archivist, SCRC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As we enter the Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust and Yom Hashoah, the Special Collections Research Center asked Natasha Goldman, Research Associate and Adjunct Lecturer in Art History at Bowdoin College, to share her recent experiences at the SCRC and the connections she made that led to Temple\u2019s acquisition of a previously … Continue reading From the Philadelphia Jewish Archives: Philadelphia\u2019s Holocaust Memorial<\/span> <\/a>