The Wiener Holocaust Library

Founded by Dr. Alfred Wiener in 1933, The Wiener Holocaust Library is one of the world’s leading and most extensive archives on the Holocaust and Nazi era. Dedicated to supporting research, learning, teaching, and advocacy about the Holocaust and genocide, their causes and consequences.

Alfred Wiener was a German Jew who worked for the Jewish civil rights group known as the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith. He spent years documenting the rise of antisemitism by collecting books, photographs, letters, magazines, and other materials that showed all the different ways that Nazi propaganda and its racist doctrines became widespread.

The library in London holds some of the earliest accounts produced by survivors of the Holocaust, as well as collections of Nazi documents and photographs and hundreds of unique collections relating to the experiences of Jewish refugee families who came to Britain in the 1930s and 1940s.

The library provides a resource to oppose antisemitism and other forms of prejudice and intolerance. Its archives contain a massive amount of material: approximately 70,000 books and pamphlets, 2,000 physical documents, 45,000 photographs, and 3,000 periodical titles, one million press cuttings, as well as posters, objects, artworks, digital collections, and audiovisual materials. Its reputation rests on its independence and the scholarly objectivity of its activities and publications.