UK’s Wiener Holocaust Library releases its extensive archive online for first time
Publication of 150,000 items, including dissident German pamphlets, Nuremberg trial documents and photos of Auschwitz, coincides with 80th anniversary of death camp’s liberation
LONDON, United Kingdom — One of the world’s largest Holocaust archives was published online for the first time Monday, coinciding with the 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 extermination of six million 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, said in a press release.
“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 death camp in Poland where Germany murdered more than one million Jews between 1940 and January 27, 1945, when Soviet troops liberated the camp.
The collection also features 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.
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.