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How Jewish refugees founded and sustained The Wiener Holocaust Library, 1934-2011

A group of eight adults dressed in formal 1940s-style clothing and hats pose together outside a building.
Dr Toby Simpson
Date 03/06/2025 at 17.30 - 03/06/2025 at 19.00 Where Gatsby Room (Chancellor's Centre) & Zoom

How is it possible that Jewish refugees from Nazis were able to create and sustain one of the world’s most important independent archives?

A group of eight adults dressed in formal 1940s-style clothing and hats pose together outside a building.

Overview

is one of the world’s most important independent archives. Situated on Russell Square, London, since 2011, its extensive collections include survivor testimonies, photographs, personal and official documents, pamphlets and rare books. This presentation will explore the motivations, successes and setbacks of the extraordinary people who sustained what Dr Alfred Wiener, the Library’s founder, described as an ‘annually recurring miracle’ that has proven instrumental at key moments in history, including the Nuremberg, Eichmann and David Irving trials.

Image: Members of the JCIO staff in Amsterdam, c.1935. On the far left are Margarete and Alfred Wiener.

 

Speaker

Dr Toby Simpson has been Director of The Wiener Holocaust Library since 2019. After completing his PhD in History at Cambridge, Dr Simpson joined the Library in 2011. He set up a new programme of exhibitions, tours, and events as well as a major digitisation project. Since that time, the Library’s audiences, activities, and impact have steadily increased and it is more widely recognised than ever before as a world leader in Holocaust research, education, and remembrance. In 2024 he was awarded an OBE for services to Holocaust memorial.

 

Details

This is a hybrid event, which will take place in-person in the Gatsby Room (Chancellor's Centre) and also on Zoom.

If you would like to attend online, please .

Refreshments will be available for the in-person audience.

 

Access

This event will take place in the Gatsby Room on the first floor of the Chancellor's Centre. It has step-free access with a lift and there is an accessible toilet located each floor of the building.

 

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The Humanities Society organises regular talks spanning a wide range of topics which take place every Tuesday during term time - please sign up to their to keep up to date with their upcoming events.

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