From the Liveblog of
Monday, January 27, 2025
UK library publishes massive Holocaust archive online for the first time
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleOne of the world’s largest Holocaust archives has been published online for the first time, coinciding with International Holocaust Memorial Day and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
The Wiener Holocaust Library’s new online portal includes more than 150,000 documents — such as photos, transcripts and testimonies — detailing Nazi Germany’s genocide of six million European Jews.
“The need to defend the truth has been given new urgency by the resurgence of antisemitism and other forms of misinformation and hatred,” Toby Simpson, director of the London-based library, says.
“By placing a wealth of evidence freely available online we are ensuring that the historical record is available for all regardless of their location, prior knowledge or means.”
The items include photographs of Auschwitz, the notorious Nazi death camp in Poland where more than one million Jews were killed between 1940 and its liberation on January 27, 1945.
Documents from the Nuremberg war crimes trials of Nazi leaders and materials about fascist and anti-fascist groups in the United Kingdom before and after World War II feature in the collection as well.
The library has also published some 500 pamphlets and books containing anti-fascist propaganda that were distributed in Germany during the Nazi era.
The reading material was disguised as advertisements for cosmetics or shampoo, recipe books and instruction manuals for housewives.
The Wiener Holocaust Library was founded in the early 1930s by Alfred Wiener, who gathered evidence of the persecution of Jews in Germany after fleeing the country.
The Times of Israel Community.