Wiener Holocaust Library

Alfred Wiener, a German Jew who worked for the Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens (Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith), a Jewish civil rights group, spent years documenting the rise of antisemitism. He collected books, photographs, letters, magazines and other materials, including school primers and children's games,{{cite web|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/propchil.html|title=Propaganda and Children During the Hitler Years|website=www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org}} recording the spread of Nazi propaganda and its racist doctrines.{{cite news|last1=Guttenplan|first1=D. D.|title=World's Oldest Holocaust Museum, in London, Gets New Life|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/world/europe/27iht-educlede27.html?pagewanted=all|access-date=6 January 2017|work=The New York Times|date=26 February 2012}}

In 1933, Wiener fled Germany for Amsterdam, where he operated the Jewish Central Information Office (JCIO). Dr. David Cohen became its president. Cohen was a prominent Dutch Jew who founded the Committee for Jewish Refugees at the same time; the Committee used the work of the JCIO for its publications, and provided some financial support to the JCIO.{{cite web |title=The Wiener Library and JCIO |publisher=The Wiener Library |url=http://wienerlibrarycollections.co.uk/novemberpogrom/about/the-wiener-library-and-jcio |access-date=2017-01-31}}

After Kristallnacht in November 1938, Wiener and the JCIO archives were relocated in Britain.{{cite news|title=Alfred Wiener, Kept Nazi Data|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/02/06/alfred-wiener-kept-nazi-data.html?_r=0|access-date=6 January 2017|work=The New York Times|date=6 February 1964}} Wiener's wife Margarethe (née Saulmann) and three daughters Ruth, Eva, and Mirjam remained in the Netherlands and on 20 June 1943 were detained by the Nazis and sent to Westerbork transit camp. In January 1944, after seven months in Westerbork, the family were deported to Bergen-Belsen. In January 1945, a rare opportunity to be part of a prisoner scheme between the Nazis and the United States appeared. The Wieners were chosen for this exchange and transported to Switzerland. Shortly afterward, Margarethe became too ill to continue travelling. On 25 January 1945, she was taken into a Swiss hospital and died just a few hours later. Soon after, Ruth, Eva, and Mirjam boarded a Red Cross ship, the Gripsholm, bound for New York where they were reunited with their father.{{Cite web|url=https://wiener.soutron.net/Portal/Default/en-GB/RecordView/Index/72647|title=Ruth Wiener collection|website=wiener.soutron.net|access-date=2019-12-10}}

The collection opened in London on 1 September 1939, the day of the Nazi invasion of Poland. In London, the Jewish Central Information Office functioned as a private intelligence service. Wiener was paid by the British government to keep Britain informed of developments in Germany. The Library remained true to its original purpose by documenting specifically the fate of Europe's Jewish population as exemplified by its own publication, Jewish News.{{Cite web|url=https://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/Wiener-Library-Publications|title=Wiener Library Publications - Wiener Library|website=www.wienerlibrary.co.uk|language=en|access-date=2019-12-10}}

Following the end of World War II, the library used its extensive collections on National Socialism and the Third Reich to provide material to the United Nations War Crimes Commission for bringing war criminals to justice. Increasingly the collection was referred to as ‘Dr Wiener's Library' and eventually this led to its renaming.

The Library published a bi-monthly bulletin commencing in November 1946 (and which continued until 1983) drew heavily on the library's own source material. Another important task during the 1950s and 1960s was the gathering of eyewitness accounts, a resource that was to become a unique and important part of the Library's collection. The accounts were collected systematically by a team of interviewers. In 1964, the Institute of Contemporary History was established and took up the neglected field of modern European history within The Wiener Library.

During a funding crisis in 1974, it was decided to move a part of the collection to Tel Aviv. In the course of the preparations for this move, a large part of the collections was microfilmed for conservation purposes. The plans to move the library were abandoned in 1980 after the transports had already begun, resulting in a separate Wiener Library within the library of the University of Tel Aviv that consisted of the majority of the book stock, while The Wiener Library in London retained the microfilmed copies.

Today, The Wiener Holocaust Library is a research library dedicated to studying the Holocaust, comparative genocide studies, Nazi Germany, and German Jewry, and documenting Antisemitism and Neonazism. It is a registered charity under English law.{{EW charity|313015|The Wiener Library Institute of Contemporary History}} In 2011, it moved from Devonshire Street to new premises in Russell Square.

Much of the artwork of Fred Kormis, creator of England's first Holocaust memorial, is being displayed at an exhibition at the library, scheduled to run until 6 February 2025.{{cite news |last= Bartov|first= Shira Li|date= 10 September 2024 |title= The overlooked artist who escaped the Nazis and made the 1st UK memorial to their victims|url= https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-overlooked-artist-who-escaped-the-nazis-and-made-the-1st-uk-memorial-to-their-victims/|work= Times of Israel |access-date=19 September 2024}}

The Wiener Holocaust Library has been collecting material related to the Holocaust, its causes and legacies since 1933. Its holdings contain approximately 70,000 books and pamphlets, 2,000 physical document collections, 45,000 photographs and 3,000 periodical titles (including 110 current subscriptions), 1 million press cuttings, as well as posters, objects, artworks, digital collections, and audiovisual materials.{{Cite web|url=https://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/Collections|title=Collections - Wiener Library|website=www.wienerlibrary.co.uk|language=en|access-date=2019-12-16}}

In 2025 the Wiener Holocaust Library launched an online archive, [https://www.whlcollections.org Wiener Digital Collections], allowing researchers to access digitised materials from the collection around the world.

The Wiener Holocaust Library offers free public access to three temporary exhibitions a year in the ground floor exhibition space, in addition to a number of mini Reading Room exhibitions, travelling exhibitions, and online exhibitions.{{Cite web|url=https://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/Exhibitions|title=Exhibitions - Wiener Library|website=www.wienerlibrary.co.uk|language=en|access-date=2019-12-11}}

Since 2015, the Library has also been the custodian of [https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ The Holocaust Explained], an educational website aiming to help British schoolchildren learn about the Nazi era and the Holocaust.

The website is designed with the British school curriculum for thirteen to eighteen year olds in mind, but it aims to be accessible to other users as well. It covers topics from the historical background of antisemitism through to the legacy of the Holocaust, drawing on the Library's unique archival materials to illustrate each section.

In November 2021 the Library relaunched [https://www.refugeemap.org/ the Refugee Map], a “digital map [which] traces refugee journeys through photographs, diaries, letters, and interviews”.{{cite web | url=https://wienerholocaustlibrary.org/what-we-have/digital-resources/ | title=Digital Resources }} As of April 2024 the map contains 440 records, 111 collections, 4 journeys and 118 map overlays, several of which are historical maps of Europe and the world.{{cite web | url=https://www.refugeemap.org/map/search/results?end_date&q=&start_date&type=record,collection,overlay,route | title=Documents from the Wiener Holocaust Library }}

The Library also awards the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History. This prize, founded by the late Ernst Fraenkel OBE (former Chairman and Joint Library President), is awarded annually for "outstanding work of twentieth-century history in one of The Wiener Holocaust Library's fields of interest." These areas of interest include the following: "The History of Europe, Jewish History, The Two World Wars, Antisemitism, Comparative Genocide, Political Extremism."[http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/Fraenkel-Prize Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History] (Accessed July 2015)

• Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service
• Stephen Roth Institute
• Joan Stiebel

{{reflist}}

• Barkow, Ben (1997). Alfred Wiener and the Making of the Holocaust Library. London: Vallentine Mitchell. {{ISBN|0-85303-328-5}}

{{commons category|Wiener Library}}

• {{official|http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk}}
• [http://www.gedenkdienst.org/english/stellen/stelle3.php4 Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service at The Wiener Library]
• [http://www.asf-ev.de Action Reconciliation Service for Peace at The Wiener Library]
• [https://www.refugeemap.org/ The Refugee Map]

{{Libraries in London}}

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Category:Academic libraries in London

Category:Jewish German history

Category:Jewish libraries

Category:Libraries in the London Borough of Camden

Category:Museums in the London Borough of Camden

Category:Charities based in London

Category:Wiener Library

Category:Opposition to antisemitism in the United Kingdom

Category:Jewish British history

Category:Holocaust-related organizations

Category:Buildings and structures in Bloomsbury

Category:1933 establishments in the Netherlands

Category:1939 establishments in England

Category:Libraries established in 1933

Category:London in World War II