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The online archive of the Arolsen Archives is a central resource for researching Nazi persecution. With the world’s largest collection of documents on the victims and survivors of Nazism, it provides a special focus on areas such as concentration camps, forced labour and displaced persons.
Nearly all of the 30 million original documents in the Arolsen Archives are already accessible online. The database of the online archive allows enables you to search for specific individuals. The database encompasses a wide range of materials, including post-war records about Displaced Persons, such as questionnaires from the International Refugee Organisation (IRO), often supplemented by photographs. Additionally, the archive contains millions of individual documents on prisoners from concentration camps, ghettos, prisons and other Nazi detention facilities, as well as deportation lists that document the trajectories of persecution of the Nazis’ victims.
The online archive thus serves as an important source of information for those who want to delve into the history of Nazism and gain insights into the individual fates of those persecuted by the Nazis.
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Yad Vashem’s Shoah Victims’ Database is an international initiative aimed at identifying and reconstructing the names and life stories of every individual victim of the Holocaust. To date, the database has information about around four and a half million of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
The Arolsen Archives and the Yad Vashem’s Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names serve different yet complementary functions when it comes to researching documentation of the Holocaust and the Nazi era. While the Arolsen Archives offer an extensive online archive with a variety of documents on a wide range of Nazi victims, including information on concentration camps, forced labour and displaced persons, the Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names specifically focuses on collecting and reconstructing the names and life stories of Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The Arolsen Archives comprise official documents and archival materials from various international sources, while Yad Vashem’s database primarily relies on personal testimonies and memories provided by survivors and relatives of victims.
For your biographical research, the Shoah Victims’ Database is an invaluable tool. You can use it to find detailed information about the victims of the Holocaust, including names, life stories and, when available, photographs. This information is particularly helpful if you are searching for specific individuals or want to understand the fate of certain individuals or families in the context of the Holocaust.
Another important aspect of the database is its availability in multiple languages, making it accessible to a broad international audience. This facilitates research for people of different backgrounds and language skills.
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The digital archive of the Leo Baeck Institute New York and the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem, known as DigiBaeck, is an extensive collection focusing on German-Jewish history, extending far beyond the Holocaust. DigiBaeck documents the rich heritage of German-speaking Jews in modern times.
Nearly all of the LBI’s archival collections, including personal documents, correspondence, family histories, genealogical materials and business records, have been digitised. The digital materials include LBI’s full collection of nearly 5,000 memoirs and manuscripts as well as unpublished diaries and memoirs documenting German-Jewish life from the eighteenth century to the present.
For biographical research, DigiBaeck thus offers a rich source for exploring the life and work of individuals from the German-Jewish community from the eighteenth century to the present. DigiBaeck provides deep insights into the diverse aspects of German-Jewish history and culture.
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With JPress, you can dive directly into the world of historical Jewish newspapers. This online archive, developed by Tel Aviv University and the National Library of Israel, is a valuable source for your biographical research. It includes digitised newspapers from various countries and in different languages.
In JPress, you can search for specific names or events to gain insights into the lives of individuals. A noteworthy aspect is that you can find information about lesser-known individuals, not only prominent figures. Newspapers often contain announcements of marriages, deaths and other important life events that help you reconstruct the life stories of individuals who might otherwise have been forgotten.
Additionally, by reading the articles, you can understand how these individuals and events were perceived at the time. Linking together information from different articles helps you form a more complete picture and sharpen your skills in historical analysis and critical thinking.
In other words, JPress is a fantastic tool for working directly with primary sources and gaining authentic insights into the past. Use it to bring your research to the next level.
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Compact Memory is another valuable portal for your research, similar to JPress. It provides access to around 500 Jewish newspapers and journals from the German-speaking world, published between 1768 and 1938 and beyond. These publications span the entire religious, political, social, literary and academic spectrum of the Jewish community and formal Jewish studies and are therefore an important source for researching Judaism in modern times.
Due to their fragile condition and losses during wartime, complete sets of many of these historical magazines are rarely found in libraries. However, now that copies from various library collections have been digitised and compiled, they are accessible in electronic form almost in their entirety. That means that not only can you digitally search nearly 80,000 individual articles by over 10,000 authors, you can even print or save them. Nearly all the titles have undergone optical character recognition (OCR) processing, making them fully searchable.
While JPress offers access to a broad spectrum of Jewish press worldwide, Compact Memory specifically focuses on the German-speaking region of Europe. This can be particularly useful if you want to explore specific aspects of Judaism in this cultural and linguistic context. The collection is continuously supplemented with additional relevant journals, meaning that you can constantly discover new and valuable sources for your research.
Overall, like JPress, Compact Memory is an excellent resource for conducting historical and biographical research and engaging deeply with Jewish history in the modern era.
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The Jewish Virtual Library is another outstanding resource for your biographical research, differing from JPress and Compact Memory. It is a comprehensive online encyclopaedia that deals with Jewish history, politics and culture. With nearly 25,000 entries, it offers you a wide range of information on topics from antisemitism to Zionism.
Unlike JPress and Compact Memory, which focus on digitised newspapers, the Jewish Virtual Library includes encyclopaedia-style articles on a variety of topics, including antisemitism, biography, history, Holocaust, Israel, politics and religion. This diversity makes it easy to find specific information about a person or an event in Jewish history. The site is available only in English.
Overall, like JPress and Compact Memory, the Jewish Virtual Library offers a rich and versatile source of information. It is ideal for in-depth biographical research and provides you access to a wealth of information.