OSA / Highlights

The Wiener Library Collection at OSA

The Wiener Library is the world's oldest Holocaust memorial institution. It documents the history of the Nazi movement, the crimes against the Jewish people and the history of the European Jewry up to the 60s. The original collection is in London. See the institute's homepage at http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/ OSA has the microfilm copies of the most important and valuable part of it: library materials, thematic press cuttings, biographical files, photographic collection, personal reports and interviews. Read more about Alfred Wiener, founder of the Library See our catalogue here: Testaments to the Holocaust Selected Documents

Caricatures about Hitler, cartoons from world press (1938). Nazis wanted to demostrate their sense of humour by publishing it. A note says the book has Party approval, and that it should be entered into the national bibliography. Each cartoon has a comment which helps the reader to interpret the pictures the right way.

The book " Hitler's Germany. The first four years of the Third Reich" (1937) depicts a flourishing country, young, dinamic people, building autobahns and roads. On the "First German May", the man waving on the balcony is dr. Goebbels.

Almost every organization had its own songbooks. This one claims to be the very first Nazi songbook.

Photos from the book With Hitler in Poland (1939). Ruines of bridges and railway stations, prisoners of war, bombed cities.

Sigilla Veri (Seal of Truth), an antisemitic encyclopaedia. It was planned to run to 6 volumes, but vol. 5 was the last to be printed. It is extremely rare, it was financed by the Reichspropagandaministerium. It was never available in bookshops, it could only be ordered direct from the publisher. Anyone buying it was required to sign a declaration that he was not of Jewish descent, had no Jewish blood or relatives and won't sell or present the book to anyone.

Thematically arranged, press cuttings represent the press from 40 countries. Among articles you can find leaflets, ephemeral material. Here you see some documents from the '33 German elections: leaflets, ballots, instructions for voters, subscription form to Völkischer Beobachter, the Nazi newspaper, etc.

Eyewitness accounts. A valuable resource, the interviews were conducted when interest in Holocaust was at a low, in the 50s and 60s. You won't find even the terms of Holocaust or Shoah in these reports. Selected Photographs

Streets of Berlin in April 1933. Boycott against Jewish shops.

Streets of Vienna, 1938.

Kristallnacht, the Pogrom in November 1938: looted shops, burning synagogues.

Public humiliation.

Slave workers in war factories of Germany.