The Dunbar Library houses a variety of educational archives and resources throughout the building, but one of the lesser-known by Wright State University students is the Dayton Holocaust Resource Center. Here is everything you should know.
Where to find the center
Some students may know about the Educational Resource Center, located on the second floor of our campus’ library, as it is a common study spot. It also features a variety of useful tools, like a button-making machine, and the library’s media equipment.
Located near the back of this large room, however, is something students may walk past daily without ever truly analyzing: The Dayton Holocaust Resource Center.
Isabella Taylor, an economics major at WSU, often visits the library to study. However, she was unaware of the DHRC until recently.
“I visit the library [two to three] times a week, and I go to the education center to make buttons sometimes,” Taylor said. “I haven’t checked out the [DHRC].”
The DHRC offers a wide variety of primary and secondary resources detailing the personal experiences of Holocaust survivors and those who lived through WWII, as well as their descendants who also discuss the influence the time period has, even today.
Founder, Renate Frydman
The DHRC would not exist if not for its founder, Renate Frydman. One professor at WSU, Mark Verman, is currently teaching an honor’s course on the Holocaust through film, and discussed Frydman’s importance to the center.
“[Frydman] established the Dayton Holocaust Resource Center many decades ago, supplied all of its materials, was instrumental [in] moving it to Dunbar Library and continues to be involved in its operation,” Vermin stated.
Some students may ask: Why would Frydman dedicate so much time into this project? While recording the history of the Holocaust is important in its own right, Frydman has personal ties to the genocide.
One excellent article by Dayton Daily News reporter Tom Archdeacon details her work, as well as her and her late husband Anschel “Charlie” Frydman’s personal experiences in pre-war Germany and during the Holocaust.
Both managed to escape the war in different ways, though both– like all Holocaust survivors– lost much of their family in the process. Renate fled the country during Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, in 1938. The night was full of violence and destruction from the Nazi party.
Her husband Anschel spent his teenage years on the run from the Nazis, where he eventually eluded them in a Polish forest for over three years. His courageous story has been committed to tape and eventually written in the published novel “Anschel’s Story: Determined to Survive,” which was written by Renate.
With the help of the Dayton community, as well as WSU students and faculty, the DHRC has been filled with a variety of personal stories of survival and courage.
Information to access
The DHRC offers a wide selection of primary and secondary sources about the Holocaust, with the three largest projects being “We Remember: Dayton Area Student Writing and Artwork About the Holocaust,” “Faces of the Holocaust: Curriculum Guide For Teachers” and “Emmanuel Ringelblum Collection of Oral History Memoirs of the Holocaust.”
Published in 2002, the Dayton area artwork book features the best work submitted by students over a six-year period. As a difficult subject, the submitted pieces are full of touching, emotional artistic expressions of the Holocaust. Reading through will certainly provide an emotional response as you witness the way teachers and students came together to create something in remembrance of the genocide.
“Faces of the Holocaust” is a series of 15 videotapes, which include personal stories of the Holocaust, as well as pictures and videos provided by survivors or found elsewhere that detail life in pre-war and Nazi Germany. The videotapes and curriculum were specially made to be shown in a classroom setting to help teach students about the Holocaust.
Finally, the collection of oral history was a collaboration between WSU and Antioch College, which recorded a series of interviews from 1978-1995 from Holocaust survivors who settled in the Dayton area.
The most important aspect of two of these projects is that the experiences of actual survivors and witnesses have been recorded for future generations to truly grasp the horrors of the Holocaust. In the curriculum guide, the description stresses this fact.
“It was still a novel idea at that time– to tape the stories of those who had actually witnessed and been part of the Holocaust. It was not always easy to convince survivors or liberators that their stories were of the utmost importance, that time was slipping by, and that these stories could only be told by those who had lived them,” the description reads.
Luckily, the DHRC has managed to record the personal experiences of dozens of Holocaust survivors and witnesses.
To access some information, you may need to contact the library. Beth Anderson and Maggie Perry, staff at the Library’s Instruction and Reference Services Department, manage the DHRC, and would be excellent to contact for steps on how to do this.
Never forget or ignore history
One hard-hitting aspect of Professor Verman’s class is the acknowledgement that genocide like the Holocaust still exists today. On top of this, many of the perpetrators survived and escaped to a life of peace soon after the end of WWII, and their desires and goals still live on today. Antisemitism, prejudice and bullying continue to exist, and a purpose of the DHRC is to help people learn to recognize and prevent these.
It is important to never forget history, especially now, when we are forced to watch it come closer to repeating itself. Take action while you can– even if all you can do for now is inform yourself of the past.
