Holocaust Letters

Holocaust LettersThe catalogue to our 2023 exhibition Holocaust Letters, by Dr Christine Schmidt and Sandra Lipner. As one of the worlds leading archives of the history of the Holocaust, the Wiener Holocaust Library houses many collections of Nazi era family letters. This catalogue examines Holocaust era correspondence for evidence of how Jewish persecutees understood what was happening to them as events of the Holocaust unfolded. It asks how survivors and relatives

The catalogue to our 2023 exhibition Holocaust Letters, by Dr Christine Schmidt and Sandra Lipner. 

As one of the world’s leading archives of the history of the Holocaust, the Wiener Holocaust Library houses many collections of Nazi-era family letters. This catalogue examines Holocaust-era correspondence for evidence of how Jewish persecutees understood what was happening to them as events of the Holocaust unfolded.

It asks how survivors and relatives preserved or safeguarded letters from the wartime period, and how these seemingly ordinary objects transform into precious and extraordinary symbols of what was lost. It illustrates powerfully how knowledge about the Holocaust was produced and exchanged by correspondents across many countries during the Second World War and in the immediate post-war era.

This exhibition and catalogue have been generously supported by the Ernest Hecht Charitable Foundation, the Stuart Rossiter Trust, the Holocaust Research Institute, Techne, and Friends and supporters of the Library.