Holocaust Book Collection Donated to Drexel University     5/20/2007
When Dan Gillis first called, seeking a home for hundreds of books he had collected on the Holocaust, Rakhmiel Peltz, Director of Judaic Studies at Drexel University, was unsure. Shortly after receiving a partial list of those books from Professor Gillis, Dr. Peltz knew exactly what to do. He began to coordinate the connection between Dr. Gillis, now a retired professor of Classics at Haverford College, with Alison Lewis, reference librarian at Drexel's W.W. Hagerty Library. This relationship culminated in the gift by Dr. Gillis of over 900 titles of importance and distinction to the Hagerty Library. Hagerty Library is fortunate to be a recipient of this stunning collection of important works on the Holocaust and Jewish culture. Other parts of Dr. Gillis’ collection have been donated to Haverford College and Akiba Academy. While at Haverford, Dr. Gillis developed curriculca and taught courses about the Holocaust, and was co-founder of the Yiddish Cultural Festival there, which has been sponsoring monthly programs since 1996, in memoriam of his colleague, Seth Brody. His poetry, including elegies about the Jewish experience in the Holocaust, were published in his volume, Vita. His unpublished collection of essays, Shards, includes his interviews with Holocaust survivors.
On May 14, 2007, at an event organized by the Judaic Studies Program, the book collection was dedicated in honor of his colleagues and good friends Helen and Stanley Segall. Dr. Gillis’s friendship with the Segalls began in a classroom, when he took a course in Russian language taught by Helen Segall. Dr. Segall, a child survivor of the Holocaust was born in Dubno, Poland, and has recently retired as Professor of Russian at Dickinson College where she founded and chaired the Department of Russian and directed the Russian and Soviet Area Studies Program. Dr. Stanley Segall, an eminent researcher of the chemical and environmental aspects of food and nutrition, is Professor Emeritus of Nutrition and Food Sciences at Drexel University. At Drexel from 1967 through 2005, he served as Associate Director of the Environmental Science and Engineering Program, and later chaired the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences for nineteen years.	Stanley Segall, Helen Segall, and Dan Gillis behind a small selection of the Segall Holocaust Book Collection.

		In addition to the book dedication, the day’s program featured, “From Shavl to Washington, DC: The Story of One Holocaust Survivor,” a powerful talk by Mrs. Nesse Godin. Eleven years old when World War II broke out, Nesse Galperin Godin was born and raised in Lithuania, survived a ghetto, concentration camp, four labor camps, and a death march. She has dedicated her adult life to teaching about the Holocaust and the consequences of hatred to both children and adults. She is Co-President of the Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Friends of Greater Washington, and she volunteers weekly at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She spoke at the event through the sponsorship of the Speaker's Bureau of the USHMM.
Nesse Godin at age 14 and today.

Accompanying Mrs. Godin was Ellen Blalock, Director of Survivor Affairs/Speakers Bureau. In her greeting, Ms. Blalock emphasized that the Museum was very proud to be a part of this event, and that the education of future generations regarding the Holocaust experience is the major task of the Museum. “The Museum loved being part of this because it allowed us to connect to a realm in which scholarship, along with memory, are key components in moving from the past to the future. What better place for us than in a library dedicating the donation of Holocaust scholarship, so that new generations can learn from our dark history to better challenge – and, we hope, repair – a world ‘waiting to be redeemed’?”

The Judaic Studies Program of Drexel University
331 Hagerty Library • Drexel University • 33rd and Market Streets • Philadelphia, PA 19104
TEL 215.895.6388 • FAX 215.895.0229
judaicstudies@drexel.edu •  www.drexel.edu/judaicstudies