The Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections
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The Vilna Collections

What are the Vilna Collections? They are history in the raw, a treasury of untold stories of Jewish life.

Women and babies at an OZE Clinic, Kaunas, 1938 (Lithuanian Communities Collection)

YIVO’s “Vilna Collections” include all of YIVO’s prewar documents and books that survived the war, as well as rare books from the famed Strashun Library of Vilna. 

The greater part of these collections is in New York, with a significant remnant in Lithuania. The materials in these collections represent Jewish life throughout Europe, including Eastern Europe, Central and Western Europe, and the Americas. The time frame runs from the seventeenth century to 1940, with the bulk of materials dating from the years between the two world wars. They are among the few prewar Jewish collections to have survived the Holocaust. As historian Jack Jacobs notes, “It is simply impossible to write a dissertation or do any serious research project related to Eastern European Jewry without consulting the YIVO materials.”


YIVO Vilna Collections in Lithuania and New York

YIVO Library in New York:

Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania:

Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences:

YIVO Archives in New York:

Lithuanian Central State Archives:


The Vilna Collections remain the core and the most heavily consulted part of YIVO’s collections in New York. The materials at the Lithuanian Central State Archives are fragments of the collections in New York and heavily mirror them in terms of content. These materials include the official records of Jewish communal institutions, the papers of prominent individuals, and general collections on theater, music, and literature. The collections document Jewish life primarily in Poland and the lands of the Russian Empire, but also contain materials on other Jewish communities in Europe and worldwide, covering the early nineteenth century to the eve of World War II. The materials are in several languages, including Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, Polish, and German.

Kehunat Abraham  (Abraham's Priesthood), Venice, 1719. Psalms and poems by physician and poet Abraham ben Shabbetai Cohen of Zante. (YIVO, Strashun Library collection)