Open House Festival

Wiener Holocaust Library

library

Barbara Weiss Architects, 2011

29 Russell Square, WC1B 5DP

The Wiener Holocaust Library is one of the world’s leading and most extensive archives on the Holocaust. Visit to view our latest exhibition 'Looted: Two Families, Nazi Theft and the Search for Restitution' which unearths difficult questions about memory, responsibility and justice through the personal story of two families' project of restitution and restoration.

Getting there

Tube

Russell Square, Goodge Street, Euston, Tottenham Court Road, Warren Street

Train

Euston, King's Cross

Bus

59, 68, 168, 188

Access

Facilities

What you can expect

The environment will be a quiet exhibition space and Reading Room. The Tours will be in the Archive in the basement which is a small space.

About

The Origins of the Library

Founded in 1933 by Dr. Alfred Wiener, the Wiener Holocaust Library is the world’s oldest Holocaust memorial institution. It was initially set up to collect and disseminate information about events happening in Nazi Germany.

Having moved to London in 1939, Dr Wiener’s collection proved invaluable, first to the British government and later, after the War, to the UN War crimes commission. Now a forum for research and scholarly debate, the Library is also known for gathering and compiling thousands of eyewitness accounts.

The Library’s current holdings number approximately 65,000 books and pamphlets, as well as periodicals, unpublished memoirs, photographs, press cuttings, and rare material obtained from all over the world.

The Present Building

In 2010 the Library acquired from Birkbeck, University of London, a 99-year lease on a substantial but dilapidated listed Georgian building, located at 29 Russell Square, in the heart of Bloomsbury. This was carefully refurbished and converted by Barbara Weiss Architects, to accommodate the collection in elegant, accessible, and climate controlled conditions – part of a £5m project intended to prepare the Library to play a more prominent role in British and international academic life.

The move was very much seen by the Library as the foundation for ensuring the appropriate conditions for its future work in scholarship, public policy and education relating to the study of the Holocaust, antisemitism and comparative genocide.

Current Exhibition: Looted

Our current exhibition 'Looted: Two Families, Nazi Theft and the Search for Restitution' concerns property valuing hundreds of billions of pounds which was looted from Jews in Europe under the Nazis. The exhibition explores an ordinary object with an extraordinary history. It unearths difficult questions about memory, responsibility and justice through the personal story of two families' project of restitution and restoration.

Architectural Team

Architect: Barbara Weiss Architects Ltd Project manager and QS: Cluttons LLP Structural Engineer: Bartons Engineers Ltd Services Engineer: Peter Deer and Associates Main Contractor: BW Interiors Ltd

For more info on this building visit AJ Buildings Library http://www.ajbuildingslibrary.co.uk/projects/display/id/4945

Online presence

wienerholocaustlibrary.org

twitter.com/wienerlibrary

www.instagram.com/wienerlibrary

www.facebook.com/wienerlibrary

Nearby

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