Other Resources: External Websites
There are a number of web resources featuring early Holocaust testimonies. Some of the more detailed of these are listed below.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM): International Database of Oral History Testimonies
The database contains links to over 125 collections of interviews and Holocaust testimonies gathered by different institutions. It features names, addresses and contact information for each organisation as well as information about the content of the collections.
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive (VHA)
VHA Online allows users to browse through 52,000 video testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, the 1937 Nanjing Massacre in China, and the Rwandan Genocide. The website also includes a detailed description of the testimony project as well as links to related articles.
Witold Pilecki Center for Totalitarian Studies: Chronicles of Terror
The online database features one of the largest collections of civilian testimonies from occupied Europe, reflecting the personal experiences of thousands of Polish victims of totalitarian crimes, as well as those of their families and loved ones. The testimonies are available in both Polish and English, and browsable by location, crime, subject, witness, victims, perpetrators and more.
The Polish Research Institute: Witnessing Genocide
The website contains unique source material documenting the experiences of approximately 20,000 survivors from Ravensbrück and other Nazi concentration camps who were evacuated to Sweden, including testimonies, drawings, photos, transport lists, layouts of camps, and teaching materials.
Birkbeck, University of London: The Nazi Concentration Camps
The teaching and educational resource was developed and written by Dr Nikolaus Wachsmann, Professor in modern European history at Birkbeck and author of KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps (2015). Developed in collaboration with The Wiener Library and the UCL Centre for Holocaust Studies, it provides a database, archive and teaching resources that reveal individual experiences and memories from the camps and details of Nazi crimes.
National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism
The online collections contains 50 life stories which include photographic material and documents. Some are video testimonies or essays written by the eyewitnesses.
The British Library: Voices of the Holocaust
The website contains oral history testimonies from Jewish refugees that came to Britain during or after the Second World War. Information cards about historical background as well as other resources including maps, statistics and teachers’ pages are also available.
Gathering the Voices
The website contains testimonies from refugees that escaped Nazi-dominated Europe by emigrating to Scotland. The stories are divided into sections and can be viewed in different orders.
Holocaust Educational Trust: 70 Voices: Victims, Perpetrators, Bystanders
This commemorative project explores the history of the Holocaust through 70 sources created by different witnesses, including victims, survivors and perpetrators. The sources include diaries, letters, testimonies and poems.
The Galvin Library: Voices of the Holocaust
The website features the testimonies collected by Dr. David P. Boder in 1946 during his visit to refugee camps in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany. He recorded 90 hours of first-hand testimony, which represent the earliest known oral histories of the Holocaust and are available through the online archive.
Freie Universität Berlin: Forced Labour 1939-1945: Memory and History
The website features a collection of audio and video interviews of 600 former forced labourers from 26 countries. It also provides background information, short films and talks about forced labour.
Holocaust Matters
This educational resource is run by the family of Holocaust survivor Dr. Ernst Israel Bornstein to showcase excerpts of his memoir. Users can explore key historical topics and themes, and search by location using the interactive map covering Ernst's route through seven Nazi labour and death camps across Germany and Poland.