YIVO Receives Support of Republic of Lithuania for Vilna Collections Project

New York, NY – The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (YIVO) is pleased to announce that has been awarded 30,000 Euros, or $34,278, by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania for work in Lithuania for the Vilna Collections Project, a seven-year initiative to preserve, digitize and virtually reunite YIVO’s prewar archives and library, located in New York City and Vilnius, Lithuania, through a dedicated web portal.

In 2015, YIVO began to work with the Lithuanian Central State Archives and the Martynas Mazvydas National Library of Lithuania to catalog, preserve, and digitize documents and books that belonged to YIVO before World War II and hidden from Nazi looting during the Holocaust. After the war, they were hidden once again from the Soviets, only resurfacing in the late 1980s when the disintegration of the Soviet Union was underway.

The materials are a diverse resource on Jewish life, community, and culture in Europe. They span the range from handwritten autobiographies by Jewish youth and humble folk tales and folk songs to the archives of scholars, such as that of Simon Dubnow, known as the father of Russian Jewish history. They include photographs, Yiddish theater and political posters, Yiddish books, and the administrative records of Yiddish and Hebrew schools and yeshivas. They contain rare Hebrew books from the private Strashun Library, which will be digitally reunited with other rescued Strashun Library books at YIVO in New York.

For press inquiries, contact:

Melissa S. Cohen
Chief Development Officer
(212) 294-6156

Sarah Ponichtera
Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Collections Project Manager
(212) 294-6119