Alfred Wiener and the making of the Holocaust Library

Combines the biography of Alfred Wiener and the history of the archive library and research institute known as the Wiener Library. It was established by Wiener in 1934 in Amsterdam, to where he emigrated from Germany in 1933. Called the Jewish Central Information Office, it was modelled after the Centralverein's "Buero Wilhelmstrasse, " which had collected information on Nazi ideology and activities, including Nazi antisemitism. In 1935, during the trial of the publisher of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in Switzerland, the JCIO provided the prosecution with material. In the late 1930s it gathered and published material on the "Kristallnacht" pogrom in Germany, and other events. In 1939 the JCIO moved to London. After the war the Wiener Library was recast as an academic institution, dealing with research and publishing, with a focus on German Jewry. It played a pioneering role in producing academic studies of the Nazi era and the Holocaust, gathering survivors' testimonies, and screening Holocaust denial publications. Includes bibliographical references (pages 196-206) and index. xx, 211 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm.