YIVO Completes Landmark Digitization and Preservation Project Reuniting Materials Nearly Destroyed By The Nazis

(New York, NY) – Today, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (YIVO) completed the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections Project (EBYVOC), a historic 7-year, $7 million initiative to process, conserve and digitize YIVO’s divided prewar library and archival collections. Through the Project, these materials have been digitally reunited through a dedicated web portal, making them accessible to a worldwide audience for the first time.

The EBYVOC Project is an international partnership between YIVO and three Lithuanian institutions: the Lithuanian Central State Archives, the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, and the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.

In 1941, the Nazis ransacked the YIVO Institute in Vilna. Many documents were destroyed and a group of Vilna ghetto workers (many of whom had worked for or been associated with YIVO) were forced to sort through the collections and select materials to be shipped to Frankfurt, for use in the Nazi Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question. In 1946, the U.S. Army recovered these documents and sent them to YIVO in New York.

These Ghetto laborers, who became known as the Paper Brigade, however, did not send all the material they sorted to Frankfurt. They risked their lives to hide other precious materials on their bodies and smuggle them from the YIVO building into the Vilna Ghetto where they were secretly hidden. These materials were uncovered after the war and then again saved in 1948 from the Soviets by the Lithuanian librarian Antanas Ulpis and remained hidden in the Church of St. George (converted by the Soviets into the Lithuanian Book Chamber) until they were discovered in 1989.

In 2017, approximately 170,000 additional documents were discovered in the National Library of Lithuania, including rare and unpublished works. These surviving books and documents – split apart by history and located in New York City and Vilnius, Lithuania – are cultural survivors of the Holocaust. Comprised of approximately 4.1 million pages of original books, artifacts, records, manuscripts, and documents, the EBYVOC Project is the first of its kind in Jewish history and represents a milestone in preserving Jewish history.

This unparalleled collection includes materials from Lithuania, Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Germany, France, and the United States among other countries and will benefit scholars, students, and the global public for generations to come.

YIVO’s original prewar archives and library are the preeminent source of documentation on the subject of East European Jewish civilization, which spanned over 1,000 years. The Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections Project has created the single largest digital collection related to East European Jewish civilization.

The collections tell us how Jews lived, where they came from, how they raised and educated their families, how they created art, literature, music, and language. These documents also reveal the relations between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors, how they understood their place in the world both politically and socially and how they faced the turmoil and promise of modernity.

For more information about the project visit the website: vilnacollections.yivo.org.

For any media inquiries please contact:
Shelly Freeman
Chief of Staff

YIVO

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of East European Jewry worldwide. For nearly a century, YIVO has pioneered new forms of Jewish scholarship, research, education, and cultural expression. Our public programs and exhibitions, as well as online and on-site courses, extend our outreach to a global community. The YIVO Archives contains 24 million unique items and YIVO’s Library has over 400,000 volumes—the single largest resource for the study of East European Jewish life in the world. yivo.org / yivo.org/the-whole-story