Holocaust Commemoration Display Materials
Collection
Identifier: MS0305
Scope and Contents
Posters, mounted on foam boards, used in exhibits for annual Holocaust commemorations. These were accompanied by a video presentation by UNC Charlotte Professor, Susan Cernyak-Spatz, a survivor of the Holocaust. There is also a biographical book by Cernyak-Spatz in the collection. The book and DVDs are cataloged separately.
Dates
- 1977 - 2003
Conditions Governing Access
Original audiovisual materials are closed to patron use. Please contact Special Collections to request the creation of use copies for particular items; requests will be accommodated when possible. The remaining materials are open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Holocaust Commemoration Display Materials are the physical property of J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections. Some material may be copyrighted or restricted. It is the patron's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other case restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in the collections.
Biographical / Historical
Susan Eckstein Cernyak-Spatz was born in Vienna on July 27, 1922. In the following twenty-three years she experienced many of the terrors of her fellow European Jews. She life revolved around the early Nazi oppression in Berlin, post- "Anschluss" Vienna, Nazi occupied Prague, and deportation to Theresienstadt in 1942. But the true horrors of the Nazi "Final Solution" awaited her in Birkenau, the woman's camp in Auschwitz where she survived her internment, beginning in January, 1943, for two years. She worked in "Canada," the Nazi name for the area within the Auschwitz Concentration Camp where victims' stolen belongings were sorted and stored. These months of hell were followed by a "Death March" and incarceration in Ravensbruck from which she and a group of fellow inmates walked away to freedom. Cernyak-Spatz retired as professor emerita of German. She has written and lectured frequently in schools, colleges, and civic groups throughout the U.S. and Europe about the Holocaust and how to teach it. Her memoir of her experiences during that period is "Protective Custody: Prisoner 34042" (Atkins Library, RARE D804.5.A935 C38 2005).
The Holocaust is the popular term used for the mass murder of some 6 million European Jews (as well as members of some other persecuted groups, such as Gypsies and homosexuals) by the German Nazi regime during the Second World War. To the anti-Semitic Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, Jews were an inferior race, an alien threat to German racial purity and community. After years of Nazi rule in Germany, during which Jews were consistently persecuted, Hitler’s “final solution” came to fruition under the cover of world war, with mass killing centers constructed in the concentration camps of occupied Poland. Susan Cernyak-Spatz died in Charlotte on November 17, 2019.
Extent
1.12 Linear Feet (30 posters, 6 DVDs and 1 volume)
Language
English
Overview
Collection of materials, majority of which are posters on foam core, used in displays for Holocaust commemorations at Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte. Also includes a 6 disc set of DVDs and a book by UNC Charlotte Professor Emeritus, Susan Cernyak-Spatz.
Separated Materials
The following materials were separated from the collection and cataloged individually: Escape from the Holocaust: A survivor's tale, the story of Susan Cernyak-Spatz (RARE DVD D804.5.A935 C37 1990, episodes 1-6) ; "Protective Custody: Prisoner 34042" (RARE D804.5.A935 C38 2005)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Biographies (documents)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Cernyak-Spatz, Susan E., 1922-
- Holocaust survivors
- Holocaust survivors -- United States -- Interviews
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives
- Narratives (document genres)
- Posters
- Ravensbrück (Concentration camp)
- Simon Wiesenthal Foundation
- Theresienstadt (Concentration camp)
- University of North Carolina at Charlotte -- Media Services
- Wood, Sauni, 1933-
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Concentration camps -- Europe
- Title
- Holocaust Commemoration Display Materials
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- M. Perez, J. Henry
- Date
- 2015
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Code for undetermined script
- Language of description note
- English
Repository Details
Part of the Manuscript Collections, J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections and University Archives, UNC Charlotte Repository
Contact:
Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte
9201 University City Blvd
Charlotte 28223 United Stated
spec-coll@uncc.edu
Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte
9201 University City Blvd
Charlotte 28223 United Stated
spec-coll@uncc.edu