Guides @ UF: Resources for the Study of Antisemitism and the Holocaust: Holocaust: Primary Sources

Primary Source Guide

Photo source: https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00068753/00001/images

TYPES OF PRIMARY SOURCES AND WHERE TO FIND THEM

Diaries, letters, autobiographies, mémoires, scrapbooks	Archives (in libraries and museums and online) and published editions
Newspapers, magazines, newsletters	Newspaper websites, databases in libraries, clippings in archives
Audio and video recordings, photographs	Databases in libraries and online, archives, film archives
Government publications, organizational records	Libraries, archives
Artifacts (e.g., objects, clothing)	Libraries' special collections, museums

Online Archives

The Arolsen Archives: searchable documents database The Arolsen Archives are an international center on Nazi persecution with the world’s most extensive collection of documents about the victims and survivors of National Socialism. The documents relate to the various groups persecuted by the Nazi regime and contain references to around 17.5 million people, making them an important source of knowledge for society today. Many of the around 30 million documents are now available in the Online Archive of the Arolsen Archives. The number of searchable names and keywords is growing all the time. In 2020, our Online Archive received the European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Award 2020, Europe’s highest honor in the field of preserving cultural heritage.
Documentation Centre Kazerne Dossin Memorial, Museum and Documentation Center on Holocaust and Human Rights.
Leo Baeck Institute: DigiBaeck 500 years of German-Jewish History online - a nearly comprehensive digital archive encompassing more than 3.5 million pages of documents from German-Jewish history (including the Nazi period).

Newspaper Research

History Unfolded: US Newspapers and the Holocaust About History Unfolded History Unfolded is a project of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. It asks students, teachers, and history buffs throughout the United States what was possible for Americans to have known about the Holocaust as it was happening and how Americans responded. Participants look in local newspapers for news and opinion about 44 different Holocaust-era events that took place in the United States and Europe, and submit articles they find to a national database, as well as information about newspapers that did not cover events. History Unfolded raises questions for scholars and will inform the Museum’s initiative on Americans and the Holocaust.

Newspaper Databases

Access World News This link opens in a new window
Compact Memory This link opens in a new window Online library of more than 115 full-text German Jewish periodicals from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Accessible to UF patrons and external users.
Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window ProQuest
Historical Newspapers: New York Times This link opens in a new window ProQuest
Historical Newspapers: Washington Post This link opens in a new window ProQuest

Jewish Telegraphic Agency Since its founding in 1917, JTA has earned a reputation for journalistic integrity, outstanding reporting and insightful analysis. JTA also serves as an international syndication service for more than 70 Jewish publications and websites that depend on JTA for Jewish news outside of their local community.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers - 8 UF subscriptions only This link opens in a new window
Times Digital Archive This link opens in a new window

Union List of Digitized Jewish Historic Newspapers Union List of Digitized Jewish Historic Newspapers, Periodicals and e-Journals compiled by Joseph (Yossi) Galron-Goldschläger, Ohio State University Libraries

Government Publications

Avalon Project: The International Military Tribunal for Germany Documents from The Nuremberg Trials
Final Report to the Secretary of the Army on the Nuremberg War Crimes Final Report to the Secretary of the Army on the Nuernberg War Crimes Trials Under Control Council Law No. 10. The OCCWC (Office, Chief of Counsel for War Crimes) was officially established on October 24, 1946 and formally deactivated on June 20, 1949. The OCCWC was established in the Office of Military Government for Germany (U.S.) [OMGUS], by General Order 301, Headquarters U.S. Forces in Europe, and was the successor to the Subsequent Proceedings Division of the Office of the U.S. Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality. In this report on the Nuremberg war crimes trials, which were conducted under the authority of Control Council Law No. 10, Brigadier General Telford Taylor, Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, also describes the creation, organization, and functioning of the OCCWC. His report covers the period from the beginnings of the OCCWC in October 1945 to its deactivation in 1949. Available to UF Patrons through HeinOnline or freely available to all online through the Library of Congress.
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Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals This 15-volume series summarizes the course of the more important proceedings taken against individuals accused of war crimes during World War II, excluding the major war criminals tried by the Nuremberg and Tokyo International Military Tribunals. These representative trials of war criminals were selected for this series based on the major points of municipal and international law that were raised and settled during the trials as well as the potential for the greatest legal interest. UF patrons can access the books in the Libraries, or online through the HeinOnline Trials Series; they are also freely accessible online through the Library of Congress.
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Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression This eight-volume, 12-book series, also known as “The Red Series,” is a “Collection of Documentary Evidence and Guide Materials Prepared by the American and British Prosecuting Staffs for Presentation before the International Military Tribunal at Nurnberg, Germany.” The Red Series makes available an indexed sampling of the evidence used to support the charges made against the major Nazi war criminals in their trial at Nuremberg, Germany, 1945-1946. This book is available to UF patrons in the Libraries or is freely accessible online through the Library of Congress.
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Nuremberg Trials Project (Harvard Law) The Harvard Law School Library's Nuremberg Trials Project is an open-access initiative to create and present digitized images or full-text versions of the Library's Nuremberg documents, descriptions of each document, and general information about the trials.
Nurnberg Military Tribunals: Indictments In addition to the twenty-four major political and military leaders of Nazi Germany, tried before the International Military Tribunal, 185 other defendants, from many sectors of German society, also were brought to trial. This second group of defendants was brought before the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals in a series of twelve trials known as the “Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings.” The defendants were grouped according to their main area of activity: medical, legal, ethnological, economic, or political. The Office of Military Government for Germany (US), also known as OMGUS, published each indictment as a separate document. The document linked below is a single bound copy of all the individually published indictments. (OCLC Number 456727697).
Trial of the Major War Criminals This 42-volume series, also known as “The Blue Series,” is the official record of the trial of the major civilian and military leaders of Nazi Germany who were accused of war crimes. The accused were: Hermann Wilhelm Göring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Robert Ley, Wilhelm Keitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Walter Funk, Hjalmar Schacht, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Karl Dönitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Martin Bormann, Franz von Papen, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Albert Speer, Constantin von Neurath, and Hans Fritzsche. The International Military Tribunal, under the jurisdiction of the Allied Control Authority for Germany, directed the publication of this series. The London Agreement of 8 August 1945 established the tribunal, which was composed of one member and an alternate from each of the four Allied countries: the French Republic, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America. English, French, German, and Russian were the languages used throughout the hearings. Documents entered into evidence were reproduced in this series only in the original language, but as the result of the absence of a Soviet editorial staff, none of the Russian-language documents were published. The complete volume set is available to UF patrons in the Law Library or online via the HeinOnline database, or is freely available online through the Library of Congress
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Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, Nuremberg, October 1946-April 1949. These books are available in the UF Libraries, online for UF Patrons through the HeinOnline World Trials Library, or freely accessible online through the Library of Congress.
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Databases and Internet Resources

Documents from Nazi Germany (German History in Documents and Images) German History in Documents and Images (GHDI) is a comprehensive collection of original historical materials documenting German history from the beginning of the early modern period to the present. The project comprises ten sections, each of which addresses a discrete period in Germany's history. Each section has been compiled by one or two leading scholars and includes: an introduction to key developments in Germany's social, political, and cultural history during the period; a selection of primary source documents (in German and English) originating from the period; a selection of images originating from or relating to the period; a selection of relevant maps.

Europeana Collections This link opens in a new window

Holocaust-Era Assets: National Archives Records The Holocaust-Era Assets web pages provide a better understanding of the record holdings of NARA relating to the looting, locating, recovering, and restituting Holocaust-Era assets. Substantive research interest in Holocaust-Era Assets began in 1996 with various issues related to Swiss dormant bank accounts and gold looted by Nazi Germany. Within several years interests expanded to include, among other things, looted cultural property (including books, archives, manuscripts, and Jewish communal property), looted art works, unpaid and unclaimed insurance policies, and issues surrounding slave and forced labor.
Nazi Propaganda (1933-1945) ropaganda was central to National Socialist Germany. This page is a collection of English translations of Nazi propaganda for the period 1933-1945, part of a larger site on German propaganda. The goal is to help people understand the great totalitarian systems of the twentieth century by giving them access to primary material. The archive is substantial. If you are looking for something specific, try the search function. For further information on the German Propaganda Archive, see the FAQ.
Post-War Europe: Refugees, Exile and Resettlement, 1945-1950

Artifacts

Artifacts Unpacked Each artifact in our collection has a story to tell. The Artifacts Unpacked video series takes you behind the scenes to learn about the objects the Museum protects and how they keep alive the memory and experiences of victims and witnesses of the Holocaust.
Katz Ehrenthal Collection at USHMM The Katz Ehrenthal Collection consists of over 900 individual objects depicting Jews and antisemitic and anti-Jewish propaganda from the medieval to the modern era, which were created and distributed throughout Europe, Russia and the United States.

Published Sources

The Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps 1945: Eyewitness accounts of the Liberators The liberation of the Nazi concentration camps 1945 : eyewitness accounts of the liberators edited by Brewster Chamberlin, Marcia Feldman with an introduction by Robert H. Abzug by [edited] Brewster Chamberlin, Marcia Feldman with an introduction by Robert H. Abzug; freely accessible via the internet archive.
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Yizkor (Memorial) Books

Gedenkbuch der Universität Wien Following the advent of the National Socialist regime in the year 1938, more than 2,700 mostly Jewish affiliates of the University of Vienna were dismissed and subsequently driven away and/or murdered - lecturers, students and administration employees. Furthermore, over 200 people were stripped of their academic titles. In 2008, 70 years after the so-called "Anschluss" [annexation] and the pogroms of what came to be cynically called the Kristallnacht [Crystal Night], the University of Vienna commemorates this injustice and is aware of the amount of shared responsibility it bears for this inconceivable atrocity perpetrated against its affiliates. For the first time ever, the names of those dismissed, exiled and disenfranchised men and women are chronicled in this memorial book. It contains the names of the lecturers dismissed and students expelled for "racial" and/or "political" reasons whose venia docendi [post-doctoral lecture qualifications] or academic titles were rescinded. It is of paramount importance that the victims of the National Socialist persecution at the University of Vienna (including the Vienna School of Medicine, which in the intervening years became an independent institution) remain part of the collective memory of today's University. In its Guiding Principles, as defined in 1999, the Senate of the University admitted the involvement of the University and its affiliates in the crimes committed by Nazis. The University of Vienna endeavors to consistently remain "a place that reflects variety and diversity and uses them for its further development. Variety manifests itself in different skills and life forms, governed by parameters like gender, age, level of education, cultural, ethnic and religious affiliation, sexual orientation, parenthood, disability or ailment." (Development plan 2008). This memorial book is not complete; rather, it should be regarded as a historical document and a thought-provoking impulse. Work is in progress and will be for a long time to come. In spite of in-depth scientific research, this list of names and its accompanying online data base are far from completion, which is difficult if not impossible. The research process is ongoing and those involved hope to discover more names of forgotten victims of National Socialism, who will consequently take their place amid their peers in the pages of this book. The project team would be extremely grateful for any relevant information or references. They are painfully aware of the fact that past injustice cannot be expiated by this, their work. Rather, this is a belated, symbolic initiative, unfortunately destined never to be completed. This document is dedicated to the Present and to the Future, as a memento and a caveat addressed to all affiliates of the University: "Nip evil in the bud".
Jewish Gen Yizkor Book Project Yizkor (Memorial) Books are some of the best sources for learning about Jewish communities in Eastern and Central Europe. Groups of former residents, or landsmanshaftn, have published these books as a tribute to their former homes and the people who were murdered during the Holocaust. The majority of these books were written in Hebrew or Yiddish, languages that many contemporary genealogists cannot read or understand. The JewishGen Yizkor Book Project was organized in 1994 by a group of JewishGen volunteers led by Leonard Markowitz and Martin Kessel. A translation project was developed by Susannah Juni and implemented by Joyce Field. It is our purpose to unlock the valuable information contained in Yizkor Books so that genealogists and others can learn more about their heritage. For more information, see the Yizkor Book Frequently Asked Questions or the Development of the Yizkor Book Project page.
New York Public Library Yizkor (memorial) books document Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust. Most (85% ) of the 700 yizkor books at The New York Public Library are online.
Yiddish Book Center You can search this online collection by title and by the name of the towns they commemorate, or browse this list on our website by country and community name. You can browse both the New York Public Library and Yiddish Book Center digital collections, along with links to English translations on New York Public Library's Guide to Yizkor Books.

Genealogical Research

Getting Started with Holocaust Genealogical Research
JewishGen Holocaust Database JewishGen's Holocaust Database is a collection of databases containing information about Holocaust victims and survivors. It contains more than 3.69 million records, from more than 380 component datasets, listed below.