Stefanie Halpern, Director of the YIVO Archives

The YIVO Archives has some unique challenges, in that archival documents rescued from Nazi destruction by the Vilna Paper Brigade are housed in YIVO’s headquarters, which was off-limits for several months. In order to move ahead and make these important materials available, we focused on thousands of pages that had already been digitized as part of the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project. My team increased user access to our online holdings, translated writings, and transcribed handwritten catalog cards. By the end of 2021, people everywhere will be able to visit our website and see artifacts ranging from the Yiddish theater to political posters to writings kept in the Vilna ghetto, to Theodor Herzl’s 1884 diary.

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Hear from other members of our professional team:

Alex Weiser Director of Public Programs	Eddy Portnoy Academic Advisor and Director of Exhibitions	Karolina Ziulkoski Chief Curator, YIVO Bruce and Francesca Cernia Slovin Online Museum	Ben Kaplan Director of Education

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