The HHRC Celebrates the Life of Gerda Haas

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 24, 2021

CONTACT
Tam Huynh
tam@hhrcmaine.org

AUGUSTA – The Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine (HHRC) learned today of the passing of HHRC founder and Holocaust survivor Gerda Haas. During her time in Maine, Gerda was a champion for Holocaust human rights education in Maine schools and a pillar in the Jewish community.

“We are so very saddened to hear of the passing of HHRC’s founder and visionary Gerda Haas,” HHRC Executive Director Tam Huynh said. “Gerda poured herself into her life’s work of teaching Maine students about the Holocaust. Our hearts and prayers go out to her family both here in Maine and in Minnesota.”

Born in Ansbach, Germany, on November 23, 1922, Gerda Haas witnessed the brutal murder of her mother and sisters at a Nazi concentration camp in Riga, Latvia, before arriving at the Theresienstadt concentration camp in the Czech Republic in 1943. After the end of World War II and Liberation, she was reunited with her father who had survived and was then living in New York. 

Once in the United States, Gerda Haas met and married Dr. Rudolph Haas and later moved to Maine, where they had four children. She graduated from Bates College in 1971, where she worked as a librarian for many years. It was during a summer seminar held on the Bates campus in 1984 that Gerda Haas, Jed Davis, Burke Long, and others established a task force that would later lead to the founding of the HHRC in 1985.

Gerda and Rudolph Haas moved to Minneapolis in 2002 to be closer to one of their daughters. Dr. Rudolph Haas passed away in 2006.

“We will carry on the legacy of Gerda Haas through our work here at the HHRC. We have no doubt that Gerda passed knowing that Holocaust and human rights education is now required in Maine schools thanks to a bill that was signed into law by Governor Mills last week. Through the HHRC’s work, we know Gerda’s memory will be a blessing,” said Huynh.

To learn more about Gerda Haas and her legacy in Maine, please visit: https://hhrcmaine.org/blog/gerda-haas/.

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