HIST3490: The Holocaust: Web-Based Digital Collections

In the 1930s, what could the average American citizen learn about the Nazi persecution of Jewish individuals and other minorities from reading American newspapers? How did the U.S. press report on these atrocities? How did American domestic politics, social movements, and prejudices influence press coverage? The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has launched the History Unfolded project to facilitate exploration and conversation around these important questions. The museum has invited researchers and students across the United States to collect and digitize U.S. newspaper articles to include in the museum's growing online database. In Spring 2018, these archives will be incorporated into an exhibition about Americans and the Holocaust. Meanwhile, visitors to this website can learn how to participate in the project or browse through the articles currently in the database. There are a number of Teacher Resources here, including a detailed lesson plan and links to online newspaper databases that will help history instructors facilitate classroom research projects.

This elegant and moving site from the Riga Ghetto and Latvian Holocaust Museum tells the stories of six survivors of the Holocaust. By putting a human face to the horrific numbers - between 1941 and 1945 more than 70,000 Jews and Roma were murdered in Latvia - the site brings the realities of life and death in the Latvian ghettos into startling focus. The experiences of these individuals, told through poignant combinations of image and text, include a dockworker who saves Jews from certain death, a Jewish woman who carefully records her experience for later testimony to the Allied forces, and a young boy who survives the concentration camps to find a new life in America. Readers are encouraged to scout the MAP tab on the landing page, where Google Street View images from present-day Riga are juxtaposed with images and oral histories that recount the experience of the Ghetto, street by street. In all, these innovative features work to bring this terrible period to life with the words of those lucky enough to live through it, and bring a sobering new perspective to one small piece of an international human tragedy.

The Anne Frank House has crafted this interactive tour of Anne Frank's secret hiding place that is altogether moving, profound, and wonderful. First-time visitors should look over the About the house area for an introduction to this very famous domicile. Next, the Who's Who area provides a multimedia introduction to the eight people living together in the secret annex. Visitors can even Enter the 3D House for a first-hand look into this living space, accompanied by audio stories and descriptive excerpts from Anne's diary. Finally, The outcome area contains a number of short video clips, including oral histories with Otto Frank, about the arrests of Anne and those who shared the space with her.

How were so many people murdered in the Holocaust? It is a grim question, and it is explored with great sensitivity and insight in this digital exhibition created by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Designed to complement an in site exhibit, the materials here include photographs, oral histories, and other documents that look at the different roles played by teachers, workers, policemen, and teenagers during this period in world history. The Religious Leaders area contains moving newsreel footage about the role played by Ukrainian Orthodox bishops during this period. The site also includes a For Educators area, complete with lesson plans and resources, such as links to the Holocaust encyclopedia and bibliographies. Additionally, the site contains a glossary and a detailed timeline.

After the conclusion of World War II, over 140,000 Holocaust survivors came to settle in the United States. Over 1,000 of them ended up in Wisconsin, and their stories survive online courtesy of the work of archivists at the Wisconsin Historical Society. Between 1974 and 1981, these archivists interviewed 22 survivors and two American witnesses. They collected 156 hours of audio and 3,400 transcribed pages, and this website offers all of these materials, in their entirety, for the first time. The subjects covered within these interviews are extensive, and they include conversations about the conditions in the concentration camps, the fates of their families, emigrating to the United States, and Wisconsin's Jewish communities in the mid- and late-20th century. Visitors can choose from any of the 24 testimonies, listen to brief excerpts, and also check out the lesson plans and activities here.

The goal of the University of Southern California's Shoah Foundation Institute is "to overcome prejudice, intolerance, and bigotry-and the suffering they cause-through the educational use of the Institute's visual history testimonies." On their homepage, visitors can watch testimonies from Holocaust survivors and others, along with learning more about their "Featured Resources". These resources include the Education Portal, which brings together lesson plans for teaching about the Holocaust and guidelines for using primary documents in the classroom. Scholars and others will appreciate the "Scholarship & Research" area which includes information on upcoming conferences, research stipends offered through the Institute, and events. Also, it is worth noting that the site also has many resources in other languages, including German, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, and Russian.

For those who survived the Holocaust, talking about that time can be a difficult, and, sometimes, impossible endeavor. In the early 1990s, Sala Grancraz Kirschner was preparing for a major surgery, and she decided the time was right to tell her daughter about her experiences. She gave her a red cardboard box that contains a wide range of letters written in Polish, German, and Yiddish that chronicled her experiences in seven different Nazi forced labor camps. Over a decade later, the New York Public Library created this website in order to complement an in situ exhibit at their main branch. Visitors to this site can learn about Sala's life before the war, her time at Geppersdorf (a labor camp in Germany), and the Nazi postal system. With detailed essays, interspersed with her letters and other primary documents, the site is a wonderful testimony both to her perspicacity and a fine way to learn a bit more about the experiences of a unique individual.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has done the Web-browsing public a great service by placing this extremely comprehensive and authoritative multimedia archive online. Online since 1999, the Multimedia Learning Center provides access to some of the past virtual exhibits sponsored by the Center's Museum of Tolerance (including a fine one dedicated to Polish Jews), a host of teacher's resources, and a helpful frequently-asked-questions area. The FAQ area may be most helpful for students, as it contains an interactive glossary of the Holocaust, a timeline of the Holocaust, and answers to 36 commonly asked questions about the Holocaust. The special collections area of the site contains a number of relevant primary documents related to the Holocaust, though it should be noted that the majority of them are available only in German and Hebrew.

"The United States Holocaust Museum (USHM) has worked on a number of important projects, and this might be one of their most moving. Working with the archives of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), they have digitized approximately 1100 photographs of children who were displaced or orphaned as a result of the persecution carried out by the Nazis and their collaborators. The intent of this project is 'to identify these children, piece together information about their wartime and postwar experiences, and facilitate renewed connections among these young survivors, their families, and other individuals who were involved in their care during and after the war.' Visitors to the site can browse the photos by name or just by viewing the gallery as they see fit. The site also includes a 1945 BBC radio broadcast seeking relatives of displaced children and a section with updates on the project's progress." [Internet Scout Project]