World’s Largest Privately Held Holocaust Archive Donated to University of Colorado Boulder Libraries
From the University of Colorado Boulder:
The Mazal Holocaust Collection, considered the world’s largest privately owned Holocaust archive and the most significant U.S. collection outside of the Holocaust museums in New York and Washington, D.C., has been donated to the University of Colorado Boulder.
The highly regarded collection comprises more than 20,000 books and 500,000 documents, pamphlets, photographs and other materials, including original transcripts of the Nuremburg trials. Five thousand of the volumes are limited editions and rare books.
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The archive is the life work of Harry W. Mazal, a retired businessman from Mexico City who made San Antonio, Texas, his home and became an internationally recognized Holocaust collector and researcher. Working with numerous volunteers, Mazal dedicated his life to creating a vast repository committed to defending the voices and memories of the victims of the Holocaust around the world by promoting scholarly research related to Holocaust studies, Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism and bigotry.
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After Mazal’s death in 2011, his family wanted to ensure that his life’s work and legacy would continue to be available to scholars, researchers and educators around the world. A portion of the books from the Mazal Library has been donated to the new Texas A&M University–San Antonio. The rest of the library, including the highly valued archive and limited edition books, has been donated to CU-Boulder.
“The Mazal Holocaust Library was everything to Harry,” said daughter Aimee Mazal Skillin of Lone Tree, Colo. “It was his heart and soul and he made it his mission to debunk Holocaust deniers. His archive material was vast and CU has the capability to maintain, restore and share these valuable resources with the world.”
The materials were donated to Archives and Special Collections in CU-Boulder’s University Libraries and the Program in Jewish Studies. The collection will enhance scholarship and support research initiatives in a variety of disciplines and programs, said Steven Leigh, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
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The Mazal Holocaust Collection will be housed within the Archive of Post-Holocaust American Judaism. The archive will examine Judaism and the Jewish experience through the lens of religious, cultural and social movements in America, as well as various philosophies of Judaism and Jewish organizations from the late 1940s to the present.
The Archive of Post-Holocaust American Judaism includes the most complete collection of materials documenting the Jewish Renewal movement, including the personal collection from the movement’s founder, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, as well as rabbis Arthur Waskow, Leah Novick and Michael Lerner, who also is editor of Tikkun magazine. Together these collections describe the revitalization of Judaism in America since World War II, emphasizing the cultural, ethical and mystical traditions in Judaism and Jewish culture that blossomed in the postwar U.S.
Read the Complete Announcement
See Also: Mazal Created Widely Used Library in San Antonio (August 22, 2011; via San Antonio Express News)
Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Associations and Organizations, Libraries, News, Open Access

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.