More about the Vilna Archives & Library

The Vilna Archives and Library are the remnants of YIVO’s collections from before the war, collections that were looted by the Nazis.

The YIVO Library collected Jewish books and periodicals from all over the world, with an emphasis on publications in Yiddish.

Archival materials collected by YIVO in the 1920s and 1930s include literary works, letters, memoirs, theater posters, photographs, rare books, pamphlets, newspapers, political tracts, religious treatises, and communal records chronicling roughly 500 years of Jewish life in Poland, Russia, Lithuania, and other European countries.

Poland Collection

Leaflets, posters, and other documents related to political organizations, elections, banks, trade unions, cultural activities, religious matters, and sports, from over 200 Jewish communities.

Russia and the Soviet Union Collection

Letters, reports, clippings, posters and other documents Documents relating to Jews in the Russian Empire and in the Soviet Union, 1845-1930s, including petitions to the tsar, documents about Jews in the Russian army, and police reports about Jewish revolutionaries.

The Papers of Simon Dubnow

Known as the father of Russian and Polish Jewish history, Simon Dubnow was one of the first to encourage and initiate the collection and preservation of Jewish historical documents.

The Esther Rokhl Kaminska Theater Museum

Large collection of manuscripts, playbills, posters, correspondence, clippings and photographs relating to Jewish theater in Poland and other countries before World War II.

Tarbut Hebrew Teachers Seminary Records

Records of a seminary that trained teachers for the Hebrew elementary school system in Poland.

Photographs Collection

Photographs or negatives of Jewish life in various countries including Palestine and Argentina; books, manuscripts; YIVO exhibits; photographs of personalities; blood libel trials; pogroms.

The Elias Tcherikower Archive

Documents assembled by the historian Elias Tcherikower, including extensive documentation on the pogroms that swept Russia and Ukraine during and immediately after World War I, and the papers of Baron Horace (Naftali Herz) de Gunzburg, an important Jewish communal leader in the Russian Empire.

Rabbinical School and Teachers' Seminary Records

Records of the Rabbinical School and Teachers' Institute, one of several Jewish state schools established in the Russian Empire in 1847 in order to undermine and replace the traditional heder system of education.

YIVO Vilna Ethnographic Committee Records

Materials on folklore, ethnography, and linguistics collected by before WWII.

Lithuanian Jewish Communities Collection

Records related to Jewish communities in the independent Republic of Lithuania, from 1919-1940, including records of the Ministry of Jewish Affairs, Jewish communal records, and photographs.

The Papers of Eliyahu Guttmacher

Several thousand 19th-century kvitlekh (written requests to a rabbi asking for a blessing or advice) sent to Rabbi Eliayahu Guttmacher, known as the Tsadik [define] of Graetz.

TSYSHO (Tsentrale Yidishe Shul Organizatsye) Records

Records of the Tsentrale Yidishe Shul Organizatsye (Central Yiddish School Organization),
a secular Yiddish school system active in Poland from 1921 to ca. 1940.

Page from a child’s class notebook honoring Yiddish writer, I.L. Peretz, on the 25th anniversary of his death, Poland, 1941.

Music Collection

Manuscripts of musical works for the Yiddish theater, including music for about 450 operas, operettas and vaudeville skits.

Yiddish Literature and Language Collection

Manuscripts by and biographical materials on Jewish writers and scholars, as well as other materials about Yiddish language and literature.

Vaad Hayeshivot Records

Records of an organization that provided financial and spiritual assistance to a network of 70 yeshivot in the five Eastern provinces of Poland.