Vilna Discovery: Lost Jewish Documents

On October 24, 2017, YIVO announced the discovery of a trove of lost Jewish materials thought to have been destroyed during the Holocaust. The new Vilna Discovery contains never before published literary manuscripts from some of the most famous Yiddish writers as well as numerous religious and communal works. It is a watershed moment for understanding the dimensions of Jewish history and marks an important new chapter in the dramatic story of Nazi looting during the Holocaust, when the Germans were seeking to destroy not just the Jewish people (in Lithuania approximately 90 to 95 percent of the Jewish population was murdered) but their memory and culture.

Containing more than 170,000 pages, this trove of materials was first hidden from the Nazis by the YIVO Paper Brigade during WWII and subsequently preserved for decades by the heroic efforts of Antanas Ulpis, a Lithuanian librarian, who saved the documents from the pulping mills and stored them in secret in St. George Church, which had been turned into a branch of the National Library of Lithuania. Similar to Oskar Schindler and other heroes of the Holocaust, Ulpis risked his own life--in his case, to preserve the memory of the Jewish people.  

Ten documents from the discovery will be on display at YIVO, located in the Center for Jewish History (15 W. 16th Street). These rare treasures of Jewish history and culture, from the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Collections Project, are on loan from the Martynas Mazvydas National Library of Lithuania, and are on view Wednesdays at 2:00pm in a guided tour by appointment only.