Linda Schwab: A Survivor's Story
Linda Schwab Holocaust Reading Room
Schwab Family Holocaust Reading Room dedication lays groundwork for study center at Penn State Harrisburg
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. 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 former 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. 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.”
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.
To learn more about the Schwab Family Reading Room, please visit the Office of Development website.
