The Wiener Holocaust Library

03/09/2026

Our latest newsletter is on its way to subscribers now!

In this edition find out about our final exhibition events, the subject of our next groundbreaking original exhibition launching in November, newly published research from the team, and as usual even more free evening events.

03/09/2026

📣 Join us on 11 October for an online lecture with the winner of this year's Ernst Fraenkel Prize!

Amber Nickell will be discussing her work, Brotherlands to Bloodlands: Ethnic Germans and Jews in Southern Ukraine, Late Tsarist to Postwar.

The Fraenkel prize judges found the book to be “an ambitious and profound study which has the potential to make a great impact.” It will be published by Indiana University Press in Fall 2027.

02/09/2026

Our educational and outreach team offer a variety of tours, workshops and talks to school, university, adult learner and community groups.

To book a school visit or tour, please email the Learning Team, and we would be happy to discuss opportunities for:

📚 Viewing items from our remarkable collections and learning more about our exhibitions on one of our pre-booked group tours of our archive and our current exhibitions.
💬 Workshops covering a variety of themes relating to the N**i era and genocide, including prejudice and discrimination, propaganda and genocide, and resistance and rescue.
📍A visit to your school, college, university or workplace

01/09/2026

A police decree made on this day in 1941 made it compulsory for all Jews over the age of six in Germany and the occupied territories to wear a yellow Star of David.

Our collection contains a multitude of examples of these yellow stars, including from Germany, France and the Netherlands.

31/08/2026

Our latest exhibition draws on the unique collections of the Wiener Holocaust Library to explore how perpetrators such as the SS, the chemical company I.G. Farben and weapons manufacturer Krupp profited off and exploited slave labourers.

It examines the stories of the many victims of slave labour: from the experiences of Jewish labourers in Auschwitz subcamps dying from chemical poisoning; to prisoners of war being starved to death while forced to build N**i Atlantic defences in the Channel Islands.

Through clandestine photographs of forced labourers at work, eyewitness testimonies, and the official files of culpable companies, visitors will gain insight into the experiences of the victims, and trace how industries and companies became complicit in their exploitation.

📍 On display until 30 October 2026
📆 Open Monday - Friday 10am - 5pm
🗝️ Free entry

28/08/2026

📣 Work with us!

We are seeking an individual with experience of digitising library and/or archival collections to digitise our globally significant collections and support reader services as a member of the Collections Team. The successful candidate will have a proven track record in photography and digitisation, a knowledge of photographing and processing items in a studio situation, and a deep understanding of the equipment, software and systems used for this.

As we are a small organisation, we are looking for someone who is a good team player and willing to be involved in a variety of projects as necessary. This will include supporting our reading room services by covering the Reading Room Enquiry Desk and retrieving materials from the stores.

Due to the nature of the role, it is based on-site at the Library. Usual working hours are 9.30am – 5.30pm.

We are hiring for this role on a part-time (60% FTE), permanent basis.

28/08/2026

‘Annihilation through work’: London exhibit highlights overlooked story of slave labour in WWII.

Read about our latest exhibition, including an interview with its curator, in a new long read in The Times of Israel

'N**i Slave Labor: Perpetrators and Victims,' which runs at the Wiener Holocaust Library through the end of October, explains how integral forced workers were in Germany's wartime economy

27/08/2026

In the years after the Holocaust, survivors created yizker bikher — memorial books dedicated to the towns and communities that had been destroyed. In her book, Paper Tombs: Post-Holocaust Memorial Books and Prewar Jewish Life, Jennifer Rich explores these extraordinary works of collective memory.

Book now:

27/08/2026

"The indictment accuses those men of major responsibility for visiting upon mankind the most searing and catastrophic war in human history. It accuses them of wholesale enslavement, plunder and murder..."

This excerpt is from the opening statement of the prosecution in the I.G. Farben trial, the 6th post-war war crimes trial, that opened on this day in 1947.

I.G. Farben was the private German chemicals company allied with the N**is that manufactured the Zyklon B gas used to commit genocide against millions of European Jews.

The company also paid to 'rent' salve labourers contracted out by the SS at their factories, and owned the Buna-Monowitz subcamp of Auschwitz, which they built with the SS in 1942.

In our collection we hold documents from the Farben Trial, some of which are on display in our current exhibition, N**i Slave Labour: Victims and Perpetrators.

26/08/2026

The Kampfgeschwader 3 (KG 3) was a bomber wing of N**i Germany’s air force (Luftwaffe) during World War II.

Formed in 1939, the unit participated in several major campaigns, including the invasion of Poland, the Battle of Belgium, the Battle of France, the Battle of Britain, and the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa). KG 3 was disbanded in August 1944.

In our collection we hold two enlarged aerial photographs of British aircraft production sites in Coventry and Longbridge, Birmingham. The images were taken by the Luftwaffe Kampfgeschwader 3 for reconnaissance purposes. Both prints are punched, include notations and markings of relevant facilities, and have a detailed evaluation sheet attached to them. The photos were taken in 1940.