Holocaust Artifact Conservation Workshop

The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion hosted a one-day workshop entitled, “Archives 101: Introduction to Archives with a Special Focus on Holocaust Collections,” and sponsored by The Society of Ohio Archivists. The workshop was designed for people responsible for historic records and papers of institutions, organizations, or families and took place on Sunday, January 13, 2002 on the campus of HUC-JIR, 3101 Clifton Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio.

This daylong session provided the basics of working with archival materials and introduce the necessary skills of collecting, appraising, processing, describing, and servicing archival collections. The workshop instructor was Anna Truman, Assistant Archivist, The Albert B. Sabin Collection at the Cincinnati Medical Heritage Center and former Project Archivist, The World Jewish Congress Collection at The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives. Ms. Truman used examples of Holocaust period memorabilia that have been loaned or donated to The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education for Mapping Our Tears, a new project that will “map” the journeys of Holocaust survivors and liberators from Nazi Europe to their new homes in the Greater Cincinnati area.

According to Gail Mermelstein, Project Director for Mapping Our Tears, and President of Combined Generations of the Holocaust of Greater Cincinnati, “many children of survivors and WWII liberators and soldiers have approached me about caring for documents and textiles from the Holocaust period. For survivor families, these few items represent the only family legacy they physically own. This wonderful workshop provided practical examples in an informal setting to help people preserve these valuable mementos.”

For more information, contact Anna Truman by phone at (513) 556-1958 or by e-mail at Anna.Truman@uc.edu, or access the Society of Ohio Archivists website at: http://www.ohiojunction.net/soa/workshp.html.