Dear Friend,

Welcome to The Wiener Holocaust Library's e-newsletter for March 2021.

Sadly, the Library remains closed until further notice in line with the most recent government advice. Please see below for more details about possible plans for reopening.

This month we are pleased to announce access to the USC Shoah Foundation archive; the launch of two new event series for the Library; a staff blog to mark LGBTQ+ History Month; a new article published on The Holocaust Explained; PhD and a Cup of Tea events are back; and a chance to catch up on virtual talks and register for upcoming events.

We know this is a difficult time for everyone, and we continue to send our very best wishes to you all.

Kind regards,

The Wiener Holocaust Library

By Dr Barbara Warnock, Senior Curator and Head of Education

The Wiener Holocaust Library is pleased to host a series of workshops and other events designed to engage a variety of researchers, students, faculty, educators and other audiences with our new digital resource, Testifying to the Truth, which features more than 1,000 eyewitness accounts of refugees and survivors of the Holocaust, newly digitised and translated into English for the first time. The resource will continue to grow as more accounts are translated and published.

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new article on the Library’s online educational resource The Holocaust Explained focusing on the creation of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in the closing stages of the Second World War.

The ITS (now known as the Arolsen Archives) is an archive based in Bad Arolsen, Germany, which contains over 30 million pages of Holocaust-era documents relating to the fate of over 17.5 million people. The ITS was originally founded to centralise post-war efforts to trace missing persons and help survivors discover the fate of loved ones caught up in the Holocaust and Nazi persecution during the Second World War.

Yet, its creation was disjointed and messy: it emerged out of several, separate (and sometimes competing) efforts by numerous organisations at various points, during and in the immediate aftermath of the war. Our new article explains this complex process of creation and sheds light on its diverse collections.

The Wiener Holocaust Library holds the United Kingdom’s only digital copy of the ITS, and continues to conduct research for survivors, academics and the wider public.

A prisoner registration card created by the Nazis and belonging to Adolf Schmidt, a German man from Saarbrucken, who was imprisoned in Buchenwald as a political and criminal prisoner on 18 June 1943. ITS Digital Archive, Wiener Holocaust Library Collections.

The PhD and a Cup of Tea doctoral seminar series is designed for early-career researchers and PhD candidates to present their research for feedback from other researchers, PhD candidates, and faculty. We are particularly interested in welcoming MA, doctoral students, and faculty to attend the seminars to share their views and perspectives.

To get involved and to present your research, please contact Dr Christine Schmidt.

The Library is deeply distressed that the UK will no longer be participating in the European Solidarity Corps.

We have been working with several European organisations for a number of years to offer an inspiring and empowering experience for young Europeans who want to help, learn and develop in Britain as part of their voluntary service.

We would like to ask our friends and supporters to share and sign the petition below.

By Vivien Harris

My mother came to England in 1939 on a Domestic Service Visa. I am sure that some of the readers of this newsletter will have heard Jennifer Craig-Norton’s excellent presentation on this subject and I was wondering what interest there would be in establishing a “Domestics” group. The aim would be to create a website where descendants could share their relative’s stories and relevant historical documents, letters and photos which would bring this remarkable British rescue story to a wider audience and in so doing, commemorate and educate about these domestic workers.

In the first instance I would be delighted to hear from anyone who is a descendant of a Domestic, with a view to forming a network and, with any luck, there may even be somebody who has the expertise to create such a website.

Many of us are holding on to precious documents, letters and photographs, wondering where to place them so this material could then be uploaded onto such a website. I don’t know how others would feel but if my mother’s documents were to be on a website, I would feel less anxious about having the originals in my possession and maybe, in the future, I would be happy to hand them over to an organisation which could store them permanently.

If you are interested, please email me at: daviv30@virginmedia.com

The Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London, with the support of the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University, USA, and Pears Foundation, is pleased to invite applications for participation in a unique virtual ‘taster’ edition of the biennial European Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilisation. This version marks an interlude from the full residential Summer Institute, which will take place in summer 2022 (conditions permitting).

This event will take place on MS Teams from Tuesday 15 - Thursday 17 June 2021. A series of 90-minute sessions will be spread across the three days, with no more than three sessions per day. These will be taught by staff from the Holocaust Research Institute, beginning at 12:00 and finishing by 17:00 BST. The programme will consist of seminars and discussions focusing on new trends in historiography and scholarship in several fields, such as representations of the Holocaust in literature, film and digital humanities.

Becoming a member is a powerful way you can support us in working towards our wider mission. In return, you can enjoy our exclusive member benefits and know that you are playing a significant role in the future success of the Library.