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Holocaust Study Resources

YIVO's Holocaust collections can be found in two separate departments‚ the Library and the Archives‚ according to type of material. Books, periodicals, and newspapers can be found in the Library; while manuscripts, organizational files, and photographs are held by the Archives.

YIVO Library

The YIVO Library has a wide range of publications, in many languages, that relate to the Holocaust. These include:

Bibliographies

Among these are the 13-volume series published jointly by YIVO and Yad Vashem (Jerusalem), covering sources in English, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Hungarian. French sources are covered in bibliographies published by the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (Paris), and German sources in the Wiener Library's Catalogue Series (London). Abraham J. and Hershel Edelheit's Bibliography on Holocaust Literature (3 vols.) is the most extensive guide to books and articles in English.

Reference books

These include the Encyclopaedia Judaica (16 vols.), the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (4 vols.), and comprehensive surveys, such as the following:

  • The Destruction of the European Jews, by Raul Hilberg (Chicago, 1967)
  • The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe during the Second World War, by Martin Gilbert (New York, 1985)
  • The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932-1945, by Leni Yahil (Oxford, 1990)
  • The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945, by Lucy S. Dawidowicz (New York, 1975)

Published sets of original documents

These include:

  • America and the Holocaust, edited by David S. Wyman (New York, 1989-1991, 13 vols.)
  • The Holocaust, edited by John Mendelsohn (New York, 1982, 18 vols.)
  • The Nazi Holocaust, edited by Michael R. Marrus (Westport, 1989, 15 vols.)

The above books provide a basic introduction to the Holocaust and are widely available in many public and university libraries. More specialized materials include:

  • Photographic albums.
  • Nuremberg War Crimes Trial transcripts (published excerpts).
  • Memoirs and eyewitness accounts.
  • Books published in Nazi Germany.
  • Memorial volumes (yizker-bikher) commemorating Jewish communities in Eastern Europe.
  • Lists of Jewish deportees compiled in western Germany (including west Berlin), France, and Belgium.
  • Lists of Jewish deportees to Terezin (Theresienstadt).
  • Lists of Jewish Holocaust survivors in postwar Europe.
  • Postwar publications by Holocaust survivors in German, Austrian, and Italian displaced persons camps.
  • The Holocaust in fiction, drama, and poetry.

Note: Much of this material is not in English.

Read more about Holocaust collections in the YIVO Library.

YIVO Archives

Children waiting to be deported to a death
camp, Lodz Ghetto, ca. 1942. (RG 241
Nachman Zonabend Collection)

The YIVO Archives also has large collections on the Holocaust. These include:

  • Fragmentary records of Nazi government agencies (Berlin Collection, RG 215).
  • Records of the French Jewish community under German occupation (Records of UGIF, RG 210, and other collections).
  • Documents on Dutch Jewry during the Holocaust.
  • Documents from the Lodz, Warsaw, and Vilna Ghettos.
  • Records of HICEM, on the relief activities of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in Europe during World War II.
  • Personal testimonies.
  • Photographs. The Photo Archives holds about 10,000 images of the Holocaust and related subjects. Descriptions of these pictures, scattered across several different collections, have been cataloged and can be accessed via an online database.
  • Maps.
  • Records of Holocaust survivors in the postwar displaced persons camps.

Read more about the Holocaust collections in the YIVO Archives.

Links to other Holocaust study resources

Beit Lohamei Haghetaot - Ghetto Fighters House Museum

Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine
Paris, France

Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
New Haven, CT

Foundation Monumentum Iudaicum Lodzense
Lodz, Poland

In Search of the Drowned: Testimonies and Testimonial Fragments of the Holocaust
Yale Fortunoff Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Yale Fortunoff Archive, 2021).

Leo Baeck Institute
New York, NY. A partner of the Center for Jewish History.

Memorial Book for the Victims of National Socialism at the University of Vienna in 1938
Vienna, Austria

Poetry in Hell
The complete collection of poems (in Yiddish and English) from the Warsaw Ghetto's Ringelblum Archives

Polish Righteous – Recalling Forgotten History
A project of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw. In Polish and English

Simon Wiesenthal Center
Los Angeles, CA

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Washington, DC
Consult the USHMM also for information about local Holocaust resource centers.

University of Michigan Holocaust Survivor Oral Histories
Dearborn, MI

The Wiener Collection, Tel Aviv University
Ramat Aviv, Israel

Yad Vashem
The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority
Jerusalem, Israel