Follow this BBC video from the year 2,011 in which Ben Barkow, Director of the Wiener Library, explains the types of collections that the WL has.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-15881261
Source: BBC News, year 2011. Ben Barkow Director of the Wiener Library
Today I visited the Wiener Library. I went on a weekly tour with a guide and learned about the history of Weiner and how his collections became an established information center, and how it evolved to becoming the largest collection in the world. Before the Nazi persecution, Mr. Wiener, his wife and three daughters lived in Amsterdam. The Wiener library was formerly known as The Jewish Central Information Office (JCIO), and it was originally located in an old building at Oxford Street.
The timeline goes like this:
1933-1939- The family is living in Amsterdam and in the misdt of Nazi persecution, Mr. Wiener was collecting all sorts of pamphlets, testimonies, papers. The guide mentioned that some of the collection is still in the Russel Square building. In 1939 Mr. Wiener moved to Manchester Square, London on the eve of war, and his family remained in Amsterdam and were incarcerated. They old survived but Mrs. Wiener died on a train on her way to Switzerland.
The Jewish Central Information Office in London was a valuable resource for tracking people. The German government deposited all of the ITCS records in digital form at the Weiner Library (with funding from the UK government, the NHL) so families can track the fate of their relatives during the Holocaust and World War II.
The library recolated to a new facility at Devonshire Street. One of the first visitors was Mr. Theodore Heuss, President of the Federal Republic of Germany. Eva Reichmann was the Head of Research at the Wiener Library. A former BBC employee, and respected Sociologist. She was instrumental in guiding the "Testifying to the Truth" project, which consisted on the collection, recording, and indexing of 1300 testimonies from survivors of the Holocaust and victims of Nazi persecution.
Over the years, the facilities became inadequate to hold the precious collections and there was not enough room for greeting visitors and host exhibits. On the year 2,011 the WL received a generous grant and donations from two major foundations and was able to move to a new location, on Russel Square. The current location on Russel Square is the Bedford Estate and the WL leases it. The exhibit room, the reading room were refurbished to make the rooms inviting and with plenty of natural light.
We went downstairs where the storage rooms are "Document Store 1" "Document Store 2". These are climate controlled rooms to preserve artifacts and photos. There is a "Photographic Store" room.
Some of the artifacts shown in our visit are:
An insignia that Jewish were forced to were on their clothes. It has an inscription in Dutch language.
Children's books antisemitic messages
There is an original of the book Meinn Kampf autographed by Adolf Hitler.
Board games Jewish Out!
Photographs from Neumann Mendel a business man whose factory was consfiscated and he was taken prisoner then forced to leave the country.
Alice Fink left Germany and moved to the UK and trained as a Nurse. There is an original letter from Berlin in 1942, which is the last communication received from her relatives. Jews could send letters via the Red Cross to try to reunite with his families. Alice worked in the "Jewish Relief Unit" she met her husband there and they both emigrated to the USA. Before moving, she wrote her own biography.
We proceeded to another room a very large room with rows and rows of shelves: periodicals, serials, books, and artifacts. We saw contemporary magazines with neo-nazi material dated 2011.
Now we are going to the Wolfson Reading Room. A very welcoming and pleasant area. We were greeted by the reference librarian. She mentioned there must be around 48,000 books in total (upstairs and downstairs).There is an offsite facility located in Oxfordshire, where there are more books. These are processed by request and it takes a few days to get to users.
There were at least two people who were in the tour group and were interested in donating material to the library. We ended up having a conversation about preservation, user experience, she was delightful and happy to work for such a special place. She mentioned that one of the most important things they have worked on is the Reading Room policies which are clearly stated in the website https://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/?unique_name=Using-the-Library
Currently, the Lost Photographs of Gerty Simon exhibit is on. Amazing curatorial work. It took two years for this exhibit to happen.
I think I gathered enough primary sources to rephrase my research questions and start writing my capstone paper.