LibGuides: Holocaust History: Find Primary Sources

Primary Sources at Chapman University

Oskar Schindler Archive website
The Oskar Schindler Archive is part of the Sala and Aron Samueli Holocaust Memorial Library located on the 4th floor of the Leatherby Libraries. The archive holds a wide range of materials related to the history of the Holocaust.
Oskar Schindler Archive collections Search Oskar Schindler Archive collections. All collections contain materials related to the history of the Holocaust.
Center for American War Letters Archives, Leatherby Libraries The Center for American War Letters Archive is located on the basement floor of the Leatherby Libraries. The archive holds letters from the United States Armed Forces' soldiers during the Second World War who took part in the liberation of Nazi concentration and death camps. Follow this link to search these letters. To search for the letters, type "Holocaust" (without the quotes) in the "enter your search terms" search bar on ArchivesSpace.
Frank Mt. Pleasant Library of Special Collections and Archives, Leatherby Libraries Frank Mt. Pleasant Library of Special Collections and Archives is located on the 4th floor of the Leatherby Libraries. The archive holds the Henri Temianka papers which contains materials related to his campaigning for the release of his parents from a Nazi concentration camp in Gurs, France
Henri Temianka correspondence Chapman University Digital Commons contains digitized correspondence related to Henri Temianka's successful effort to secure the release of his parents from a Nazi concentration camp in Gurs, France.
University Archives, Frank Mt. Pleasant Library of Special Collections & Archives University Archives is located on the 4th floor of the Leatherby Libraries. The archive holds materials related to events hosted by the Barry and Phyllis Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education at Chapman University. The archive also holds the Frederic J. Kakis papers. Dr. Kakis was born in Drama, Greece, and he and his family survived the Nazi Holocaust in Greece during World War II.

Archives Unbound This link opens in a new window Topically-focused digital collections of historical documents. We currently have access to the collections listed as alternate titles above. Terms of Use. Coverage: 1891-1947.
Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies This link opens in a new window Database of >4,400 video testimonies of people with a range of first-hand experience of Nazi persecution. Participants from the Americas, Europe, and Israel using their preferred language.
Refugees, Relief, and Resettlement: Forced Migration and World War II This link opens in a new window Chronicles the plight of refugees and displaced persons across Europe, North Africa, and Asia from 1935 to 1950 through correspondence, reports, studies, and organizational and administrative files. Terms of Use. Coverage: 1935-1950.
Socialism on Film This link opens in a new window The world as seen in documentaries, newsreels, and films by Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese, Eastern European, and Latin American filmmakers. Access includes: Module 1: Wars & Revolutions. Terms of Use. Coverage: 1918-present.
USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive This link opens in a new window Streaming video of over 53,000 primary source testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity, including the Nanjing Massacre and the Guatemalan, Armenian, and Tutsi genocides. Terms of Use. Coverage: 1915-present.

Research Methods Primary Sources This link opens in a new window
Introduces the key approaches to working with primary source materials and historical evidence with nearly 200 hundred essays, videos, "How to" guides, and case studies by subject specialists. Includes a module on Interrogating Colonial Documents and Narratives. Terms of Use.

NARA - Transcription Tips
National Archives tips for transcription of historical documents, as well as "Tips for reading Historic Documents."

What are Primary Sources?

According to the Society of American Archivists' Dictionary of Archives Terminology, a primary source is, "material that contains firsthand accounts of events and that was created contemporaneous to those events or later recalled by an eyewitness."

Sources

Society of American Archivists: Dictionary of Archives Terminology

Archives and Primary Sources Outside Chapman University

Utilize these websites to identify archival institutions holding primary sources related to the history of the Holocaust.

Archivegrid A useful guide for locating archives around the world. Information can be searched by topic or specific archive. New resources are continually added.
EHRI Portal
An inventory of archival institutions that hold Holocaust-related material.
Online Archive of California Online access to finding aids of repositories in California.

Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies This link opens in a new window Database of >4,400 video testimonies of people with a range of first-hand experience of Nazi persecution. Participants from the Americas, Europe, and Israel using their preferred language.

Oral Histories curated by the 1939 Society The 1939 Society is an organization started by Holocaust survivors in 1952 and promotes Holocaust education and remembrance. In 2014, they curated part of the 152 oral histories with Holocaust survivors from a project coordinated by Jack Pariser under the sponsorship of the Orange County Chapter of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. The complete collection of Oral Histories can be located in the USHMM Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive is one of the largest and most diverse collections of Holocaust testimonies in the world. The Museum conducts its own interviews, and also actively collects testimonies produced by individuals and institutions such as libraries, archives, and local Holocaust research centers.

USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive This link opens in a new window Streaming video of over 53,000 primary source testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity, including the Nanjing Massacre and the Guatemalan, Armenian, and Tutsi genocides. Terms of Use. Coverage: 1915-present.

Voices of the Holocaust These recordings represent the earliest known oral histories of the Holocaust, which are available through this online archive.

The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry by Vasily Grossman
Call Number: DS135.R92 C647 2002
ISBN: 0765800691
Publication Date: 2001-07-31
The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry is a collection of eyewitness testimonies, letters, diaries, affidavits, and other documents on the activities of the Nazis against Jews in the camps, ghettoes, and towns of Eastern Europe. The Soviet writers and journalists Ilya Ehrenburg and
Vasily Grossman collected and processed eyewitness accounts of crimes against the
Jews, thus making one of the first oral history studies of the Holocaust.

Documentation does not exist for all victims and survivors of Nazi persecution. Below you will find resources for information on Holocaust victims and survivors.

Ancestry Library Edition This link opens in a new window Vital records database with 200+ Holocaust-related collections; the Holocaust-related collections and many others are also freely available at Ancestry.com

Arolsen Archives The Arolsen Archives – International Center on Nazi Persecution is formerly the International Tracing Service (ITS). The archives are an internationally governed centre for documentation, information and research on Nazi persecution, forced labour and The Holocaust in Nazi Germany and its occupied regions. The archive contains about 30 million documents from concentration camps, details of forced labour, and files on displaced persons. Also included is an e-Guide which can assist you in reading the documents.
CDEC Digital Library- Italian Victims of the Holocaust Search the database for Italian Victims of the Holocaust.
The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names (Yad Vashem) Yad Vashem, together with its partners, has collected and recorded the names and biographical details of millions of victims of systematic anti-Jewish persecution during the Holocaust (Shoah) period. More than four million eight hundred thousand of the near six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices are commemorated here. This database includes information regarding victims of the Shoah: those who were murdered, many whose fate has yet to be determined as well as some who survived.
Database of Holocaust Survivor and Victim Names (USHMM) The Museum’s Database of Holocaust Survivor and Victim Names contains records on people persecuted during World War II under the Nazi regime including Jews, Roma and Sinti, Poles and other Slavic peoples, Soviet prisoners of war, persons with disabilities, political prisoners, trade union leaders, "subversive" artists, those Catholic and Lutheran clergy who were seen as opponents of the regime, resisters, Jehovah's Witnesses, male homosexuals, and criminal offenders, among others.
Digital Memorial Book for the Victims of the Mauthausen Concentration Camp and its Subcamps 1938–1945 Database for people who died in Mauthausen and subcamps
The German Federal Archives- Memorial Book The Memorial Book allows you to search for victims of the Holocaust
Holocaust.cz A database of Jewish victims deported from the Bohemian territory and the prisoners of the Terezin ghetto from other European countries. The site also offers information about the “gypsy camps” (Zigeunerlager) of Lety and Hodonin and of the “gypsy camp” of Birkenau. There is also a search function for the digitized documents on this site.
JewishGen's Holocaust Database JewishGen's Holocaust Database is a collection of databases containing information about Holocaust victims and survivors. It contains more than 3.79 million records, from more than 400 component datasets.
Jews of Latvia: A project Name and Fates 1941-1945 (University of Latvia) The database comprises names of 90, 244 Jews who lived in Latvia on the eve of the Holocaust. The database can be searched in English, Latvian, and Russian.
Memento Vienna An online tool that offers information about the victims of the Nazi regime in Vienna
The Terezín Memorial - Database of Former Prisoners
Treblinka Victims and Escapees Database Search the “Book of Names" for Treblinka Victims and Escapees.

How to Document Victims and Locate Survivors of the Holocaust by Gary Mokotoff; Benjamin Meed (Foreword by) This reference book can guide you through the process and includes the addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers of organizations, libraries, archives and other facilities around the world with notable collections of Holocaust materials.
Call Number: D804.3 .M65 1995
ISBN: 0962637386
Publication Date: 1995-06-01

This is not a complete list because achival materials related to the Holocaust are located in countless archives around the world. I recommend using the "Locate Archives" tab to discover more archives.

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives On this site, you can view galleries, exhibits, and topically arranged content (Our Stories); learn about the documents and finding aids, photos, artifacts, films, oral histories, and indexed names available in "Our Collections"; and conduct research in the online database. Many collections are digitized.
The Centropa Archive The Centropa Archive interviewed more than 1,200 Holocaust survivors in 14 European countries. Search their biographies by country, language, etc. The collections include over 25,000 privately held family photographs and personal documents. Use the advanced search engine to explore photos by theme, category, country and other options.
EuroDocs Part of the EuroDocs project at Brigham Young University, this page contains a collection of links to European primary historical documents that are transcribed, reproduced in facsimile, or translated. Please note that many of these online collections have not been translated into English.
German History in Documents and Images This is a comprehensive collection of primary source materials documenting Germany's political, social, and cultural history from 1500 to the present. It comprises original German texts, all of which are accompanied by new English translations, and a wide range of visual imagery.
The Harvard Law School Library's Nuremberg Trials Project 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.
Holocaust-Related Records at the National Archives The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an international epicenter of Holocaust-related research. NARA holds millions of records created or received by the U.S. Government during and after World War II that document Nazi war crimes, wartime refugee issues, and activities and investigations of U.S. Government agencies involved in the identification and recovery of looted assets (including gold, art, and cultural property)-as well as captured German records used as evidence at the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg, U.S. military tribunals at Nuremberg, and U.S. Army courts.
The Taube Archive of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg, 1945-46 The Taube Archive of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg, 1945-46 archival collection provides access to a digital version of Nuremberg IMT courtroom proceedings and documentation, including evidentiary films, full audio recordings of the proceedings, and approximately 250,000 pages of digitized paper documents. These documents include transcripts of the hearings in English, French, German and Russian; written pleadings; evidence exhibits filed by the prosecution and the defense; documents of the Committee for the Investigation and Prosecution of Major War Criminals; the judgment. All 9,920 collection items are searchable and viewable in digital form.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history.
The Wiener Holocaust Library Compilation of digital Holocaust resources and collections.
Yad Vashem Established in 1953, as the world center for documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust.
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research "As the only prewar Jewish archive and library to survive the Holocaust, one of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research’s greatest responsibilities is to ensure that we remember. YIVO’s collections have unparalleled treasures that document our resilience during this time in our history. These materials include diaries, survivor testimonies, ghetto and concentration camp documents, Jewish organizational records, art and artworks, music, posters, and Nazi agency records, including documents from the ransacking of YIVO’s original building in Vilna, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania)."

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