Arnold A. Jaffe Holocaust Collection

Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, and students
Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, the founder of the Holocaust Studies program at UT Dallas, with students in the Barbara Rabin Library.

The Arnold A. Jaffe Holocaust Collection is a distinguished book, video, and electronic materials resource for scholars of Holocaust studies and for the broader public. The bulk of the research collection is housed in the University’s Eugene McDermott Library. In addition, there is a selection of core texts and videos inside the Ackerman Center for easy access to frequently consulted materials. Because the collection located inside the center is not a lending library, the materials are always available for the students to reference while at the center. There is also a comfortable reading room for quiet study.

The Jaffe Collection is a part of an international interlibrary loan program that connects thousands of libraries – public, private, academic and institutional – making the holdings of the Jaffe Collection available to researchers throughout the world.

About Arnold A. Jaffe

After a successful career as a Western hat maker, Arnold A. Jaffe wanted to go back to school and complete the college studies that had been interrupted by the Second World War and his service in the U.S. Navy. In 1980 he enrolled at UT Dallas, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1982 and later a master’s degree. In his studies, he took a variety of humanities classes including Holocaust courses. One of those was called Holocaust and was taught by Dr. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, founder of the UT Dallas Holocaust Studies program. Al Jaffe, as he was known, was an avid reader, and he especially enjoyed reading 20th-century history. He was keenly interested in the history of the events that allowed for the emergence of the Third Reich. Dr. Ozsváth‘s class seemed a perfect fit for him and it was. Dr. Ozsváth said it was clear that he was a student who loved learning. She added, “He was enormously interested in the whole program.”

After earning a master’s degree in interdis­ciplinary studies in 1984, Arnold Jaffe embarked on a doctoral studies program, which was not completed at the time of his passing in 1986. Throughout his time at UT Dallas, he often said it was important to have research materials available for those who wanted to study the Holocaust. After his death, his family wanted to help fulfill that dream and, with the help of friends, created the endowed Arnold A. Jaffe Holocaust Collection. The endowment has provided for the acquisition of thousands of books, videos and electronic materials covering various aspects of the Holocaust. For him, studying and shedding light on the Holocaust was important to understand and resist the sort of genocidal and racist atrocities that live beneath the surface and from time to time regrettably burst on the world scene.


The Franklin H. Littell and Marcia Sachs Littell Collection Announcement by Jennifer Sachs Dahnert

The Franklin H. Littell and Marcia Sachs Littell Collection

The Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies has received the generous gift of the Franklin H. Littell and Marcia Sachs Littell Collection of more than 4,000 print and digital research materials. The Littell Collection consists primarily of the library of the renowned Holocaust scholar and Christian thinker Franklin H. Littell, the co-founder of the Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches in 1970.  Containing innumerable rare and out-of-print volumes collected by Rev. Dr. Littell and further built upon by Holocaust scholar and educator Dr. Marcia Sachs Littell, these texts will provide students and faculty at UT Dallas with unique research materials for generations to come. On behalf of the Littell Family, Jennifer Sachs Dahnert recently announced the donation of this important collection, which includes a bronze bust of Rev. Dr. Franklin H. Littell and a second sculpture, Generations, both by the famed artist Knud Knudsen.   

With this addition to the Arnold A. Jaffe Holocaust Collection of more than 6,000 book, video, and electronic resources, the Littell family’s donation has further elevated the Ackerman Center into one of the world’s foremost Holocaust research centers.  


The Ackerman Center would also like to thank the below individuals and families for their generosity in donating books and other primary source material to the Jaffe Collection.

  • Mike Jacobs Family
  • Harriet Gross
  • Diane Plotkin
  • Normajo Abramson-Apt
  • Joe Gibbs
  • Richard Gundy

If you have books or other primary source material that you are interested in donating, please visit the McDermott Library website.