In general, there are collections in the library and archives relating to all the categories listed below, as they pertain to the Holocaust. Comments have been made only in cases where a special note was appropriate:
Biographies/Autobiographies : – over 10,000 published memoirs and biographies in the Library, additional unpublished material in the Archives.
Published Research Guides: There are no recently published research guides. Some of the earlier published guides are still helpful. There is some information on our resources on our website.
List of the Record Groups in the Archives. Among the Record Groups is the (M8) Master Index of the International Tracing Service ("Arolsen").
There is a computerized catalog to much of the archive available at Yad Vashem.
Directories:
Telephone Directories
The archive and library include various phone books from prewar Poland
Business (merchants, teachers, lawyers etc.)
There is extensive information on professionals who were put out of business as a result of Nazi persecution, and of businesses aryanized by the Nazis.
Newspapers/periodicals: An extensive collection in the archive and library of original and microfilmed periodicals from the Nazi period, underground Jewish press, and periodicals from the immediate post-war period in Europe.
Photograph Collections: The Photo Archive, which is completely computerized, includes over 200,000 photos.
Collection on Genealogy and family history: While much of the material pertains to family history and names, there is a very
limited collection in the library and archive dealing specifically with genealogy.
Memorial Books: The library includes the largest collection in the world of Memorial books. Note that our definition of Yizkor (memorial) books differs from that of other institutions, and frequently books defined by others as Yizkor books are not defined as such, by the Yad Vashem library. There are over
1200 Yizkor Books available for perusal in the Reading Room.
Holocaust related sources: 95% of the collection is Holocaust related. It is rarely worth searching Yad Vashem for materials which are not Holocaust related.
Lists of victims/Survivors: There are over 10,000 lists of victims and survivors. Many of these lists are included in the computerized database.
Name Indexes: The Hall of Names database currently includes over 3,000,000 names
Oral history collections: The archive and library include over 40,000 testimonies and memoirs of Holocaust surivors.
Electronic resources: The largest electronic resource is our database of Holocaust victims, which includes over 3 million entries, and is growing all the time.
As of November 22, 2004 this is online. It will be updated once every three months.
http://www.yadvashem.org/wps/portal/IY_HON_Entrance