Clark University expanding Holocaust materials collection

NEW YORK, Dec. 17 (JTA) — Clark University has acquired a valuable collection of some 5,000 books and materials on the Holocaust, many dating from 1933 to 1947. The collection will be housed in the university’s library and in its Center for Holocaust Studies in Worcester, Mass. The collection, assembled over the past 10 years by Eric Chaim Kline, a Los Angeles bookseller and collector, is valued at $225,000. Deborah Dwork, director of the university’s Center for Holocaust Studies, praised Kline for assembling the collection. “Without his efforts, many of these items might have been lost forever,” she said. “Now, it is time to make them accessible to scholars committed to studying the Holocaust.” The collection includes registers of Jewish survivors of World War II, German foreign policy documents, Allied military plans, artwork illustrating anti-Semitism and photographs taken during the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. The recently established Holocaust studies center will begin offering a doctoral degree in Holocaust history next year.