Links & Resources

Series 1: Archives of the Wiener Library, London. 76 reels in four sections

Series One: Archives of the Wiener Library contains four distinct types of material:

• Eyewitness accounts
• Rare photographs
• Nazi propaganda materials
• Limited-circulation publications and rare printed serials.

Eyewitness accounts

The more than 1,200 unpublished eyewitness accounts contained in this collection allow the voices of the Nazi persecution victims to speak out in their own words. This series of reports has never before been published and will enable students and scholars to examine unique and often moving personal accounts of:

• The early phase of persecution including the April 1933 Boycott
• The November 1938 Pogrom
• Life in hiding
• Life in the concentration camps
• Emigration and the life of refugees

The uniqueness of these accounts lies in the early date at which they were collected--when the memories were fresh and raw. They predate the coining of the term "Holocaust" to describe the Nazi genocide. As narratives, they are not influenced by the mass of scholarly research, popular writing and film and television programs produced since the mid-1960s.

Rare photograph archive

Series One includes 4,000 photographs documenting the destruction of the European Jews. The collection includes:

• Family albums recording the lives that were destroyed
• Images of the rise of Nazi Germany
• Photographic evidence of the persecution and murder of the Jewish people
• Images of post-war work with survivors and Displaced Persons and the reconstruction of Jewish life

Nazi propaganda materials

The Nazi Party used a broad range of propaganda material to systematically degrade and discriminate against Jewish people in the 1930s. The propaganda material in Series One produced by and for the Nazi regime from 1933 to 1945, includes:

• Books on the Third Reich and Hitler
• "Scientific studies" covering topics such as eugenics and morphology
• Calendars by Nazi organizations
• School textbooks
• A four-volume anti-Semitic encyclopedia

Also included in this material are four examples of propaganda books, which feature stereoscopic viewers for viewing images in 3D.

Limited-circulation library publications

The collection also contains several volumes of bulletins that were written by the library's own staff between 1934 and 1965. This material was disseminated throughout Europe before, during and after the war. Its aim was to inform Jews, both inside and outside Nazi-controlled territories, about the situation in Germany and the rest of Europe. The publication of these bulletins enables examination of issues such as:

• Radicalization of Nazi persecution of Jews before 1939
• The progress of the war reflected in juxtaposed extracts from Nazi and other writings
• The persecution of Jews and the struggle to maintain Jewish life
• The reconstruction of Jewish life and the development of the scholarly study of the Holocaust

Of particular interest to scholars are the mimeographed reports from the Wiener Library in Amsterdam, produced between 1934 and 1939.

The rare material in Series One: Archives of the Wiener Library will promote a greater understanding of issues such as:

• The domestic policies of Nazi Germany
• The impact of the Nazi regime on Jewish people
• Life for Jewish people both before, during and after the Nazi regime
• The all-pervasive use of Nazi propaganda
• Life inside the concentration camps
• Life in hiding from the Nazis
• Emigration and the life of refugees

Series 2: Thematic Press Cuttings Collection, 1933-1945. 152 reels in six parts plus one index reel

From its earliest days, the Wiener Library gave a high priority to the systematic collection of press materials relating to the NSDAP and its policies, especially those affecting Jewish lives. A particular strength of the collection is the enormous range of newspapers and journals that were cut. All the major German, English, American and French titles were used, including:

• Berliner Tageblatt
• Hakenkreuzbanner
• Le Temps
• Manchester Guardian
• National Zeitung
• Neue Zurcher Zeitung
• The New York Times
• The Times of London
• Westdeutscher Beobachter

Depth and breadth of coverage were assured by consulting hundreds of less well-known local and professional papers and journals. For different topics, different publications were consulted, resulting in a collection that numbers thousands of press cuttings.

The cuttings are arranged thematically into six separate parts:

1. Germany, 1933-1939 (18 reels)
2. Countries outside Germany, 1933-1939 (10 reels)
3. The Jews in Nazi Germany, 1933-1939 (15 reels)
4. Nazi Germany, 1933-1939 (50 reels)
5. Wartime Period, 1939-1945 (54 reels)
6. Jews in World War II (5 reels)

Each part is arranged into major topics that are further broken down by subheadings. For example, the first topic in Part One is The Nazi Party, which comprises ten subsections including SA, SS, Leadership, and Membership. Part Four features three unique reels of rare press cuttings pertaining to the 1938 November Pogrom.

Approximately 50% of the cuttings are from German language publications and 50% from publications in other languages, with the majority of these in English. The resulting collection presents not only a retrospective view of events, but also the full range of contemporary readings and interpretations from around the world.

Part One: Germany, 1933-1939

Part Two: Countries Outside Germany, 1933-1939

Part Three: The Jews In Nazi Germany, 1933-1939

Part Four: Nazi Germany, 1933-1939

Part Five: War-Time Period, 1939-1945

Part Six: Jews in World War II

Series 3: Henriques Archive. 64 reels.

The Henriques Archive consists of the papers of Lady Rose Henriques who was head of the German Department of the Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad (JCRA). The objective of the JCRA was to organize the Jewish Relief Unit (JRU) as its operational body for service in post-war Europe. The JRU worked to help those who had been in concentration camps (known as Displaced Persons or DPs) and was most active in Bergen Belsen, which became the central Jewish Displaced Person's camp in the British Zone of Occupation. There are approximately 48,000 documents, plus 6 photograph albums on Displaced Persons and JRU work in Germany, Austria, U.K., Greece and Italy.

The archive covers the following areas:

• Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad/Jewish Relief Unit (JRU): how it started, organization, aims
• JRU: co-operation with other relief organizations (including the United Nations)
• Jews in Germany: general; camps/children's homes/holiday centers; 'adoption' of camps/homes; exodus camps for refugees refused entry into Palestine; communities (lists of members and information on property, synagogues, religion, supplies)
• Reports on camps
• Students: living conditions, health, supplies, bursaries, library, organizations
• Legal: restitution
• Legal: special legal problems (including compulsory Jewish first names, marriage, divorce, money, documents, citizenship)
• Legal: crimes and offences (including war crimes, Bremen Murder Trial, Riga Trial, anti-Semitism in post-war Germany, crime committed by Jews, welfare work among Jewish prison inmates)
• Legal: requisitions (houses, property outside Germany, pensions, money, communal property); emigration--repatriation, travel facilities; arbitration cases, social benefits for DPs and German Jews)
• Emigration/Aliyah: rules, schemes, forms; emigration to Palestine, U.K., United States, Scandinavia, Dominions--South Africa, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; work permits, specimen cases, repatriation
• Specimen cases: legal, contacts, immigration/emigration; Germany; rehabilitation, business, health, recognition, individuals
• Cemeteries
• Statistics: census, population movements before and under Nazis
• Religious affairs
• Reports on countries other than Germany
• JCRA files: London headquarters
• Dominions: Australia, New Zealand and South Africa
• Supplies: books, clothing, airlifts, religious purchases
• JRU administrative files
• Statistics and reports from other organizations
• Zionism: political conflicts with British authorities