In late-1945, Viktor Frankl faced the broken shell that remained of his life: Though he had survived the Nazi concentration camps, he had lost the love of his life, the baby she carried in her womb, his professional status, and the manuscript of his book. He needed to start over. But was that even possible? His answer was an unequivocal – yes
The Jewish Designer Who Transformed the Future of Modernism
World-renowned designer Josef Frank rebelled against artistic norms, delivered scathing critiques of fellow artists, and was repeatedly forced to defend his identity. Despite this, he became one of the most famous, if also one of the most controversial, Jewish designers in history.
Revealed: Immigration Documents Filled Out by Austrian Jews During the Nazi Occupation
A trove of documents from Vienna’s Jewish community during the Anschluss period has been revealed to the public for the first time thanks to a collaboration between MyHeritage and the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People at the National Library of Israel. The collection contains 228,250 records, including scanned original documents submitted by Jews hoping to emigrate from Vienna. These documents, available on the Library’s website, provide extraordinary insights into the life of Vienna’s thriving Jewish community in the years 1938–1939
Stolen by the Nazis: A Book’s Rediscovery in Jerusalem
The long journey of a book of Leviticus that was hidden in a Vienna basement during the Nazi era, before eventually making its way to the National Library of Israel’s Conservation and Restoration Lab…
“The Jews were in shock…” – A Nazi View of Kristallnacht
Reports and books written by senior members of the Nazi regime deposited in the National Library of Israel reveal chilling texts describing “The Night of Broken Glass” from the Nazi perspective…
The Bar Mitzvah Gift That Survived the Holocaust
A special dedication in a copy of the book “Mesilat Yasharim” sparked some fascinating detective work tracing the history of the Austrian Jewish community during the Holocaust, and the story of a young man and his family who were murdered by the Nazis…
“My spiritual home destroyed itself”: Stefan Zweig’s Suicide Note
The letter with which Stefan Zweig took leave of the world is preserved today in the archives of the National Library of Israel
What Did ‘America’s Freud’ Think About Hitler?
Freud himself refrained from publicly psychoanalyzing the despot. Dr. W. Beran Wolfe didn’t…
“If Judaism is a tragedy, let us live it” – Stefan Zweig’s Letters Revealed
26 letters and 6 postcards, previously unknown, all by Stefan Zweig, one of the greatest writers of the first half of the twentieth century, have been given to the National Library of Israel.
