“We’re living in scary times. Holocaust denial has been on the rise. Anti-Semitism and hatred is extremely worrisome. It’s on the front of a lot of minds, certainly this institution. These diaries, these first-person accounts, testimonies, this is the evidence,” commented U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Director of Membership and New Audience Engagement Dana Weinstein to CTV News. “This evidence will stand as proof that the Holocaust happened.”
With funds raised from a newly launched Kickstarter campaign, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum will catalog, preserve and make available online over 200 Holocaust diaries in the Museum’s collection — for the first time. The handwritten pages and notes are in 17 different languages and will need to be transcribed and translated into English. The Museum is seeking to raise $250,000 for this project.
Funding will enable the translation of the following three diaries written by Jewish refugees who fled their homes to escape the Holocaust into English:
- The diary of Joseph Strip, a young boy who wrote about his family’s harrowing experience over the grid-lined pages of his math notebook.
- The papers of Lucien Dreyfus, a journalist and schoolteacher from Strasbourg, France, who was deported to Auschwitz in 1943. His collection includes letters to his daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter who escaped to the United States in 1942.
- The diary of Hans Vogel, who fled Paris with his family while his father was interned, which contains hand-drawn and colored maps of their journey.
These three diaries will be published online in their entirety so that people everywhere can view the original pages and read the translations. Like Anne Frank’s personal record, these stories expose the truth of Holocaust history — so that ever more researchers, authors, teachers, students can learn from them and help fulfill the promise of Never Again.
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s estimated timeline for this project:
Summer/Fall 2018: Cataloging complete for all 200+ diaries- Winter 2018: Digitization complete for all 200+ diaries
- Spring 2019: Collections for all 200+ diaries published online at ushmm.org
- Summer 2019: Translations and transcriptions for 3 feature diaries added to ushmm.org collections listings
About the museum: A living memorial to the Holocaust, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is located on the National Mall in Washington, DC, and inspires citizens and leaders worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Since its dedication in 1993, the Museum has welcomed more than 41 million visitors, including 99 heads of state and more than ten million school-age children. Its website, the world’s leading online authority on the Holocaust, is available in 16 languages and was visited in 2016 by more than 19 million people. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum will remain committed to its mission of rescuing Holocaust evidence, confronting hatred and preventing genocide.
Backers receive rewards such as a “Save Their Stories” tote bag, limited edition watercolor prints from Holocaust survivor Simon Jeruchim, a “Save Their Stories” journal, exclusive behind-the-scenes tours at the Museum and its collection and conservation center (which are not open to the public) for $10,000. There are also opportunities to engage with museum curators during a coffee ($350), an in-person preview of an exhibition ($1,500) and individual guided tours in the museum and abroad to Poland and the Ukraine ($5,000 – travel not included). For more details about the diaries and campaign information, click here. Save their Stories’ campaign closes on Thursday, 13 July 2017 at 6:59 AM CEST.
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