The Wiener Holocaust Library

06/12/2022

Read the new edition of Memoria online now!

Featuring our forthcoming Symposium on the Roma genocide...

https://www.auschwitz.org/en/museum/news/memoria-magazine/

New edition of 'Memoria' - the online monthly magazine of the Auschwitz Memorial.

📖 Read online or download the PDF ➡️ http://memoria.auschwitz.org/November2022

🔹Rare Photographs Shed Light on the Events of the November Pogrom (Yad Vashem: World Holocaust Center, Jerusalem)

- BIM digital building information modelling technology supports conservation at the Auschwitz Museum

- Inside Out – Etgar Keret in Jüdisches Museum Berlin | Jewish Museum Berlin

- "Treblinka II extermination camp" audio guide in German

- Wave of activity is strengthening democratic institutions International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance - IHRA

- Symposium in London at The Wiener Holocaust Library: New Directions in the Study of the Roma Genocide

Read, Subscribe & Share

All editions: memoria.auschwitz.org

Free subscription: https://www.auschwitz.org/en/museum/news/memoria-magazine/

You can also subscribe by opening a new edition and clicking the blue button in the left panel.

30/11/2022

We need your continued support to catalogue, digitise and preserve our valuable archive to ensure that accurate, authentic information about the Holocaust is accessible worldwide.

Over 5-years, we will digitise a third of our collection of over 2 million items.

All donations received via Big Give until next Tuesday 6th December will be matched, meaning double the impact for the Library!

Find out more and donate: https://buff.ly/3gvnzSL

28/11/2022

'Help us revolutionise access to our archives'

We’re excited to announce that we’ll be taking part in the Big Give 2022 Christmas Challenge! Every donation made to our campaign from 29th November - 6th December will be doubled! Save the date!

We need your continued support to move into the second year of cataloguing, digitising and preserving our archive to ensure …

24/11/2022

We are pleased to announce The Wiener Holocaust Library will once again be participating in the Big Give Christmas Challenge, the UK’s largest online match funding campaign.

Last year was a huge success for us, enabling us to raise vital funds during a challenging time.

This year we aim to raise £30,000 towards the digitisation and preservation of the Library's unique archive. You can find out why reaching this goal is so important through our campaign page.

All donations we receive during the campaign will be doubled through pledged funds, meaning your donation will have twice the impact for the Library.

Please save the dates of the campaign in your diary, 12pm 29 November to 12pm 6 December!

https://buff.ly/3gvnzSL

23/11/2022

Lives in Limbo: Jewish Refugees in Portugal, 1940–1945

Join us this evening at Gresham College for the Third Annual Alfred Wiener Holocaust Memorial Lecture.

It promises to be a fascinating evening!

The Alfred Wiener Holocaust Memorial Lecture This lecture highlights the experiences of Jewish refugees fleeing from antisemitic persecution and from World War II to Portugal. It describes how they were treated, how they attempted to escape Europe, and how they struggled in a “no-man’s land” b...

22/11/2022

Today at the Library we welcome to film important items from our collection.

The footage will be used in a short film about the Library’s work as part of the NFTS’s Bridge to Industry scheme. We can’t wait to see the final films!

22/11/2022

"The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating"

This week in 1945, the Nuremberg Trials began.

21 high-ranking N**is were charged with war crimes, and the newly elaborated concept of crimes against humanity and genocide. It was the first trial of its kind.

Learn more about post-war trials at and check out the Library's War Crime Trials Subject Guide to find out more about the materials we hold in our collection.

22/11/2022

Fate Unknown: The Search for the Missing after the Holocaust | Leeds Inspired

Fate Unknown: The Search for the Missing after the Holocaust | Leeds Inspired

Join the co-curators of the Fate Unknown exhibition, Prof Dan Stone and Dr Christine Schmidt, who will explore the remarkable, little-known story of the search for the missing after the Holocaust. Fate Unknown draws upon The Wiener Holocaust Library’s family document collections and the Internatio...

18/11/2022

EVENT: The 2022 Alfred Wiener Holocaust Memorial Lecture

Lives in Limbo: Jewish Refugees in Portugal, 1940-1945

This lecture highlights the experiences of Jewish refugees fleeing from antisemitic persecution and from World War II to Portugal. It describes how they were treated, how they attempted to escape Europe, and how they struggled in a “no-man’s land” between a painful past and an unknown future.

Listening to their voices may help us to understand Jewish heartbreak and perseverance in the 1940s and encourage us to listen compassionately to refugees’ stories today.

Weds 23 Nov 2022

6-7pm

Professor Marion Kaplan

Sign Up gres.hm/refugees-portugal (Watch later & past lectures on website) The Wiener Holocaust Library Holocaust Memorial Day Trust

17/11/2022

There are still spaces available to attend our forthcoming Family History Research workshop in next week!

This workshop will help you take the first steps in conducting your own family research using the International Tracing Service digital archive, including using sources freely available online.

Join our Senior ITS Archive Team Manager, Elise Bath and ITS Researcher Ian Rich at Leeds Libraries as they demonstrate the uses of this important archive.

The workshop will also feature family research support services available from Leeds-based partner organisations. Bring along your family trees and research questions!

Participants will also have the chance to sign up for one-on-one consultations with The Wiener Holocaust Library’s expert researchers.

The workshop is free but space is limited, so please sign up via our website...

https://buff.ly/3AegsVd

16/11/2022

Next week our International Tracing Service team are in !

On 24th November, join the co-curators of the Fate Unknown exhibition, Prof Dan Stone and Dr Christine Schmidt, who will explore the remarkable, little-known story of the search for the missing after the Holocaust.

Fate Unknown draws upon The Wiener Holocaust Library’s family document collections and the International Tracing Service archive to illustrate the legacy of the ongoing search for missing victims. They will be joined by Professor Stuart Taberner (Director of the Horizons Institute, University of Leeds) where they will discuss the development of the exhibition and reflect on some of the issues and themes it highlights.

This event is free but space is limited. Please register online via our website...

https://buff.ly/3GeUYeE

University of Leeds Leeds Libraries Leeds Central Library

16/11/2022

Next week, join us at Holocaust Centre North for a fascinating series of events...

Our free family history research workshop will help you take the first steps in conducting your own research using the International Tracing Service Digital Archive, including how to make use of sources freely available online.

Our Senior ITS Archive Team Manager will explain how the archive can be used to help in family research and academic work.

Holocaust Centre North Archivist, Hari Jonkers, will also showcase examples of how the ITS archive can support those searching for information about survivors who resettled in the North of England.

This event is free but space is limited, so please register via our website...

https://buff.ly/3E45GSQ

15/11/2022

Join us next week at Holocaust Centre North for an evening drinks reception featuring talks from co-curators Professor Dan Stone and Dr Christine Schmidt, and the final opportunity to view their ‘Fate Unknown’ travelling exhibition

We welcome historians, archivists, family historians, heritage practitioners, and anyone interested in Jewish and Holocaust history and its aftermath.

This event is free, but space is limited, so please sign up via our website!

https://buff.ly/3hGd27q

14/11/2022

Recovery & Repair: Supporting Jewish Family Histories of the Holocaust in Britain - The Wiener Holocaust Library

Join us next week at Holocaust Centre North for our latest family history research workshop.

This workshop will help you take the first steps in conducting your own research using the ITS Digital Archive.

Our ITS Archive Team Manager will explain how the archive can be used to help in family research and academic work. Holocaust Centre North Archivist, Hari Jonkers, will also showcase how the archive can help those searching for information about survivors who resettled in the North of England.

Coming along to the workshop is free but spaces are limited, so make sure you sign up via our website!

This workshop will help you take the first steps in conducting your own research using the International Tracing Service digital archive, including how to make use of sources freely available online.

14/11/2022

Our latest exhibition is now on display and can be visited at the Library Monday - Friday, 10am - 5pm.

The Vienna Model of Radicalisation: Austria and the Shoah, highlights Vienna’s central role in the intensification of antisemitic policy in the N**i state during the Holocaust.

After Germany’s annexation of Austria during the Anschluss in March 1938, Vienna became a testing ground and motor for the N**i persecution of Jews across the German Reich.

In early 1941, the N**is decided that Vienna would be the first city to be made ‘free of Jews’.

Keep an eye on our feed to see visual highlights from the exhibition, and we look forward to welcoming you to the Library to see this fascinating display in person...

📷15th March 1938, an SS cordon in front of an enthusiastic crowd in Vienna’s city centre © Austrian National Library, Vienna

📷 Images of humiliation: a Jewish woman is forced to scrub pro-Austria slogans off the street with a brush. This type of humiliation was cynically labelled a ‘scrubbing crew’. March 1938, Novaragasse/corner of Weintraubengasse, Vienna 2 © Austrian National Library, Vienna

https://wienerholocaustlibrary.org/exhibition/the-vienna-model-of-radicalisation-austria-and-the-shoah/

10/11/2022

The road to the ‘Night of Broken Glass’ was formed by years of lies, demonisation, boycotts, and harassment of Jews. Too many people were prepared to look the other way as Jewish lives were shattered. ‘Kristallnacht’ was built on hatred but paved with indifference, and would ultimately lead to the Holocaust.

10/11/2022

Our latest launches today!

📷 Farewell photo with an inscription by Maxi Reich (1928–1941/42) for Martin Vogel, written three days before the deportation: ‘Dear Martin / My last request before Poland is that you don’t forget your chaver [comrade] Maxi. / Your Maxi Reich / Vienna 2. III. 1941 / before Poland’.

The 18-year-old Martin Vogel was Maxi’s youth leader in the Zionist youth group Hashomer Haza’ir. Maxi Reich was deported with his parents Irma and Jakob Reich to Modliborzyce on 5 March 1941. The family did not survive. © Private Collection of Martin Vogel

~~~

The Vienna Model of Radicalisation: Austria and the Shoah, highlights Vienna’s central role in the intensification of antisemitic policy in the N**i state during the Holocaust.

After Germany’s annexation of Austria during the Anschluss in March 1938, Vienna became a testing ground and motor for the N**i persecution of Jews across the German Reich.

In early 1941, the N**is decided that Vienna would be the first city to be made ‘free of Jews’.

Keep an eye on our feed to see visual highlights from the exhibition, and we look forward to welcoming you to the Library to see this fascinating display in person...

https://wienerholocaustlibrary.org/exhibition/the-vienna-model-of-radicalisation-austria-and-the-shoah/

09/11/2022

Kristallnacht, also referred to as the November Pogrom or the Night of Broken Glass, was a series of violent antisemitic attacks which took place across Germany on the 9–10 November 1938.

Antisemitic laws and decrees had been increasing from the time that the N**is rose to power, with over 400 passed between 1933 and 1938.

Kristallnacht started in response to the murder of Ernst vom Rath, a German official in Paris. Vom Rath was shot by Herschel Grynszpan, a seventeen-year-old Jewish teenager, on the 7 November 1938. The German press widely reported on the attack and vom Rath’s injuries.

Violence spread across the nation in almost every city and town. Whilst the attacks were led by the SA, citizens, and specifically young people, joined in to aggressively attack and cruelly humiliate Jewish women, men and children – in their homes, in their businesses, and on the streets. Over 7,500 businesses had their windows smashed by the SA and Hi**er Youth.

From the 10–16 November, over 25,000 men were arrested and sent to concentration camps , such as Buchenwald and Dachau . A smaller number of women were also arrested. Conditions in the camps were horrific and both men and women endured extreme violence.

📷 A young man sweeps glass off the streets following the devastation of Kristallnacht, Wiener Holocaust Library Collections

📷 Fire fighters and SS man stand outside the burning cathedral of Baden-Baden, Wiener Holocaust Library Collections

Learn more via our educational site: www.theholocaustexplained.org

04/11/2022

Third Annual Alfred Wiener Holocaust Memorial Lecture: Lives in Limbo: Jewish Refugees in Portugal, 1940–1945 - The Wiener Holocaust Library

We're delighted to announce our Third Annual Alfred Wiener Holocaust Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Professor Marion Kaplan, on the subject: Lives in Limbo - Jewish Refugees in Portugal, 1940–1945

This lecture is presented in partnership with the Holocaust and Genocide Research Partnership between the Library and The Holocaust Research Institute, Royal Holloway, University of London.

The Lecture will highlight the experiences of Jewish refugees fleeing from antisemitic persecution and from World War II to Portugal. It describes how they were treated, how they attempted to escape Europe, and how they struggled in a “no-man’s land” between a painful past and an unknown future. Listening to their voices may help us to understand Jewish heartbreak and perseverance in the 1940s and encourage us to listen compassionately to refugees’ stories today.

This event is free but spaces are limited, sign up via our website now...

Our Third Annual Alfred Wiener Holocaust Memorial Lecture will highlight the experiences of Jewish refugees fleeing from antisemitic persecution and from World War II to Portugal.

03/11/2022

Book and Travelling Exhibition launch: Anti- Antisemitism and Fighting Antisemitism from Dreyfus to Today - The Wiener Holocaust Library

Join us on 15 November for an event to mark the publication of Anti- Antisemitism: Countering Anti-Jewish Racism in Western Europe, 1890-2022 and the launch on the Library’s new travelling version of its Fighting Antisemitism from Dreyfus to Today exhibition.

This new volume, edited by the Library’s Barbara Warnock and Toby Simpson and with a foreword by Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger DBE, is inspired by the Library’s exhibition, Fighting Antisemitism from Dreyfus to Today.

This event is chaired by Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger DBE, and will feature contributions from some of the authors including Dave Rich and Daniel Sonabend.

The event is free but spaces are limited, so sign up to attend via our website now...

Join us for this event to mark the publication of Anti- Antisemitism: Countering Anti-Jewish Racism in Western Europe, 1890-2022 and the launch on the Library’s new travelling version of its Fighting Antisemitism from Dreyfus to Today exhibition.

02/11/2022

Gayle Lofthouse - 02/11/2022 - BBC Sounds

You can now hear the Library's International Tracing Service archive Team Manager, Elise Bath, discussing our forthcoming events in Huddersfield and Leeds with Gayle Lofthouse on BBC Radio Leeds

Listen from 2:43:00 to learn more!

West Yorkshire stories to make you smile, Make a Difference and the music you love.

02/11/2022

Our next exhibition The Vienna Model of Radicalisation: Austria and the Shoah, is launching on the 10th November!

The exhibition has been co-curated with the austrian cultural forum london and is on display in the UK for the first time.

Read more here:

https://wienerholocaustlibrary.org/exhibition/the-vienna-model-of-radicalisation-austria-and-the-shoah/

Join us for the exhibition launch of “The Vienna Model of Radicalisation. Austria and the Shoah” at the The Wiener Holocaust Library on 10 November, 6:30 – 8PM!

The exhibition highlights the role of Vienna as gateway for the radicalisation of antisemitic policy in the N**i State.

We are pleased to announce that Austrian Ambassador Dr Michael Zimmermann will formally open the exhibition. Opening remarks by Dr Monika Sommer (Director, House of Austrian History) and Dr Heidemarie Uhl (Curator, Austrian Academy of Science).

Join us on 10 November, 6:30 – 8PM @ The Wiener Holocaust Library
https://wienerholocaustlibrary.org/exhibition/the-vienna-model-of-radicalisation-austria-and-the-shoah/

02/11/2022

wienerholocaustlibrary.org

The Library's Annual Review, The Wiener Holocaust Library in Focus, is available to read online now!

Supporters can look forward to the print version being delivered to them in the coming weeks!

The review looks back at highlights from the past year at the Library, including developments in our Digital Transformation Project, key events, exhibitions, research, partnerships and collections.

Read now:

25/10/2022

Hybrid Talk: What is Jewish Photography? - The Wiener Holocaust Library

Through whose eyes are we seeing the past?

When it comes to the history of the Holocaust, we often rely on perpetrator photos. To counter-balance this, we need to draw on Jewish photos: photos celebrating Jewish lives before 1933, but also photos documenting lives marred by exclusion and persecution.

But what makes a photo Jewish? Is it just a question of who held the camera? A photographer is rarely in sole control: those acting in front of the camera co-create the photos; pictorial conventions are at play; and, crucially, a photo’s meaning also takes shape through its subsequent uses.

Join us next Monday 31st October for a Talk with Prof. Maiken Umbach, that takes a fresh look at a sample of ‘Jewish’ photos, and explores ways in which they might reveal aspects of Jewish experiences on which other sources remain silent.

The talk is being held both in-person and online. Tickets are free but spaces are limited so sign up to reserve your place now!

https://wienerholocaustlibrary.org/event/hybrid-talk-what-is-jewish-photography/ AJR - The Association of Jewish Refugees Jewish Renaissance

This talk takes a fresh look at a sample of 'Jewish' photos, asks how we can interpret them, and explores ways in which they might reveal aspects of Jewish experiences on which other sources remain silent.

13/10/2022

Work With Us - The Wiener Holocaust Library

Work With Us - The Wiener Holocaust Library

Find out about our employment opportunities

13/10/2022

Recovery & Repair: Supporting Jewish Family Histories of the Holocaust in Britain - The Wiener Holocaust Library

The programme for the next events in our series in Leeds and Huddersfield are now live! Sign up now... https://wienerholocaustlibrary.org/2022/09/12/recovery-repair-supporting-jewish-family-histories-of-the-holocaust-in-britain-3/

This is an in-person event taking place at Leeds Central Library on Thursday 24 and Friday 25 November. The Wiener Holocaust Library is home to the UK’s International Tracing Service […]

07/10/2022

Work With Us - The Wiener Holocaust Library

The Library is hiring!

We're seeking a Digital Asset Manager & Project Lead to join our team and play a key part in preparing the Library for the future.

The key focus of the role will be helping the Library make the most of its digital assets, its digitisation facilities and the skills of its staff and volunteers. This includes managing the Digital Transformation Project and implementing a new Digital Library and Discovery System.

If you think this could be you, follow the link for more information, including how to apply, or contact us for further details!

https://wienerholocaustlibrary.org/who-we-are/work-with-us/

Find out about our employment opportunities

04/10/2022

🚨The Library is hiring!🚨

We’re seeking a Digital Asset Manager & Project Lead to join our team and play a key part in preparing the Library for the future.

The key focus of the role will be helping the Library to make the mosr of its digital assets, its digitisation facilities and the skills of its staff and volunteers. This includes managing the Digital Transformation Project and implementing a new Digital Library and Discovery System.

To apply, follow the link in our bio to our webpage and click ‘Work With Us’. Interviews will take place week commencing the 4th November.

21/09/2022

Behind the scenes of ‘There was a time’…

Our Curators have been busy installing our new exhibition, a powerful collection of selected family photographs from our unique collection.

Visitors will have the chance to see over 100 never before seen photographs from the family papers collections of 12 German and Austrian Jewish families.

The photos document the lives of Jews in Europe from the late nineteenth century to the start of the Second World War, and provide a valuable insight into this lost world…

The exhibition opens today with a launch event this evening. There you can hear firsthand from the curators and learn more about how we came to display these fascinating photographs…

15/09/2022

Who’s joining us on Sunday for Open House Festival?

We’ll be open from 12-4pm offering:

📍Tours of our unique archive, Reading Room and Exhibition space, led by our knowledgeable staff and volunteers
📍The chance to see the final day of our exhibition, Fighting Antisemitism from Dreyfus to Today
📍A look inside our beautifully renovated Grade II listed building on Russell Square
📍 A chance to see behind the scenes of our work as Britain’s largest Holocaust archive

We’ll be open and free to all from 12-4pm. We can’t to welcome you to the Library!