Gerda Haas papers

Gerda Haas served as a librarian at Bates College from 1972 to 1984. She was born on November 23, 1922 in Ansbach, Germany to a Jewish family. At the age of 21 she was sent to Ghetto Theresienstadt, a Nazi concentration camp. She survived the horrors of the camp and, in 1946, she immigrated to the United States and eventually became a citizen. In 1969, she enrolled at Bates College and graduated two years later in 1971, summa cum laude. While working as an assistant catalog librarian at Bates, she received her MLS from the University of Maine, Orono in 1974. She also worked as a part-time German instructor at the University of Maine, Portland from 1971 to 1973. From 1977 to 1982 Gerda Haas worked on and published These I Do Remember: Fragments from the Holocaust. The book chronicles the lives of nine victims, including herself, of the Nazi Holocaust. She also has written many book reviews and articles for various publications. In 1982, Gerda Haas received a grant to organize a conference and a state-wide outreach program focused on the Holocaust. It occurred at Bates College and locations around Maine in September and October 1982.