Online portal gives public access to thousands of Holocaust-era documents

Thousands of documents, photos, transcripts and testimonies from the Nazi era – including hidden anti-fascist writings and papers from the Nuremburg trials – have been made accessible to the public via a new online portal created by the Wiener Holocaust Library.

Launched to mark International Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January), which this year commemorates the 80^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the portal will enable researchers around the world to access more than a quarter of a million pages of evidence on the genocide of Europe’s Jews.

The library describes the project to transform its unique physical collection into a digitised resource as “the largest and most ambitious of its kind anywhere in the UK”. 

The new portal provides free access to archives that have been digitised over the past three years, including over 150,000 digitised pages relating to 10,000 records evidencing the Holocaust, and the stories of the individuals and groups who tried to warn Europe of what was to follow in the face of antisemitic persecution.

The library plans to continue work to digitise collections going forward, and says the availability of documents and photographs online will grow at a rate of 100,000 pages per year over the coming years.

The launch of the portal comes at a time when there is a “new urgency” to combat Holocaust denial and misinformation, said Toby Simpson, director of the library.

“The Wiener Holocaust Library’s collections were gathered with an unparalleled urgency,” he said. “For the Jewish refugees who built our archives, documentation was often a matter of life and death. The importance of our mission, to serve as a library of record of the Holocaust, has hardly receded since then.

“The need to defend the truth has been given new urgency by the resurgence of antisemitism and other forms of misinformation and hatred.”

The digital collections will be a keystone resource for Holocaust research and education, said Simpson: “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.”

Cultural heritage institutions across the UK are running events and exhibitions to commemorate this year’s anniversary.

The Holocaust Centre North is hosting its annual event, an Evening of Commemoration, at the University of Huddersfield on 28 January.

Open to the public and free to attend, the evening will feature a mix of traditional speeches and creative presentations, including a talk by artist Jenny Kagan, a second-generation Holocaust survivor whose mother’s story is told in Holocaust Centre North’s permanent exhibition, Through Our Eyes.

 “It is so important to come together to remember, to commemorate and to reflect on our own connections to this devasting period of history and to remember the lives lost and honour those who survived,” said the centre’s director Alessandro Bucci.

“Holocaust Centre North was established by survivors of the Nazi Genocide who wanted to share their stories to educate as well as to promote compassion, empathy and friendship between diverse communities. We remain committed to this mission all year round.

“Days like Holocaust Memorial Day just offer us an additional opportunity to shed a local and national spotlight on the vital work that we do and to recognise our exceptional survivors, allies and educators who help us in our aim to ensure Holocaust History is never forgotten.”

The centre has also announced the publication of its first-ever poetry collection, Poetry After Auschwitz: Walking in West Cornwall with the Ghost of Great-Aunt Hilde, by the writer, historian and educator Ben Barkow, which features reflections on the genocide drawn from Barkow’s own family experiences.

The theme of this year's memorial day, “for a better future”, was chosed to acknowledge the rising climate of antisemitism, division and intolerance in the UK and worldwide, according to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

“Eighty years on from the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, antisemitism has increased significantly in the UK and globally following the 7 October attacks in Israel by Hamas and the subsequent war in Gaza,” said the trust.

“Extremists are exploiting the situation to stir up anti-Muslim hatred in the UK. Many UK communities are feeling vulnerable, with hostility and suspicion of others rising. We hope that HMD 2025 can be an opportunity for people to come together, learn both from and about the past, and take actions to make a better future for all.”

Documents available via the Wiener Library’s online portal

• Tarnschriften (hidden writings): These were everyday pamphlets and books cleverly concealing anti-Fascist propaganda, so it could be distributed and shared among a population kept in the dark by a totalitarian regime and an unfree press. The skilfully camouflaged pamphlets were often disguised as advertisments for cosmetics or shampoo, recipe books and even instruction manuals for housewives, and offer an insight into the scale of anti-Nazi resistance in the Third Reich. The library’s fully digitised collection of almost 500 pamphlets is the largest outside of Germany.
• Materials about fascist and anti-fascist movements in the UK: This collection includes documents relating to the Battle of Cable Street, the rise of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, and Jewish anti-fascist groups which organised against the far right in Britain both before and after the Second World War.
• Nuremberg War Crimes Trials documents: This collection, donated to the library by the Nuremberg War Crimes trial authorities, comprises authenticated copies and translations into English of Nuremberg War Crimes trial documents that specifically relate to the fate of Europe’s Jews. It was donated to the library as a quid pro quo for assistance provided to the prosecutors at the trials, and remains one of the institution’s most well-used collections.
• Photographs of Auschwitz-Birkenau: With this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day marking 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army, visitors to the site this month can access photographs of the liberation.