We’re delighted to have finalised a year-long project to create a series of new educational maps to teach the Holocaust, made possible by the generosity of the Rivers Foundation and Andreas Wesemann. The education team at the Library has worked with a designer to produce eighteen visually engaging custom-designed maps covering various events and sites relevant to the history of the Holocaust:

  • Distribution of Jewish population of Europe in 1933  
  • Location of pre-war populations of European Roma  
  • Major concentration camps in 1944  
  • Allied and Axis countries in March 1941  
  • Allies and Axis countries in October 1942  
  • Early Nazi Concentration Camps 1933-1939  
  • Operation T4 Euthanasia Centres, 1939-1945  
  • Anschluss, March 1938  
  • Extermination camps, 1944 
  • Major ghettos in 1944  
  • Sites of major Einsatzgruppen murders 1941-1944  
  • Invasion of Poland, August 1939  
  • Invasion of the Soviet Union, June-December 1941  
  • Operation Bagration, June-August 1944  
  • Invasion of France, May-June 1940  
  • D-Day Landings, June 1944  
  • Occupation of the Sudetenland, September 1938  
  • Annexation of Czechoslovakia, March 1939 

These maps are a vital visual tool to help students improve their understanding of the Holocaust, addressing common misconceptions. Research carried out by the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education in 2016 revealed frequent misconceptions about the geography of the history of the Holocaust, with many students believing for example that it took place mostly in Germany.

The research also highlighted a ‘Hitler-centric’ viewpoint on the part of students, with many not comprehending the scale of the mass murder or the levels of complicity required to enact it. These new maps show that the Holocaust was a European-wide event, by focusing on sites of the Holocaust that are poorly understood, such as mass murder sites in the Occupied Soviet Union.  

The maps can be used to promote best and better practice in Holocaust pedagogy, for example in enabling teachers to humanise the victims, and give their students an awareness of important topics such as the experiences of non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution, for example  Roma and Sinti and the victims of the T-4 Euthanasia program. 

These new maps mark the first time new Holocaust cartography has been produced for schools in several decades, and are a marked improvement on existing maps available, with up-to-date research and a focus on visual clarity, digital accessibility and learning outcomes for students.  

The maps have a cohesive visual identity, based on the colour palette of The Wiener Library. To maximise map literacy and understanding, all maps make use of colour-coding that is consistent across all maps, as well as a map key. For example, in the map below, ‘Invasion of the Soviet Union, June-December 1941’, the green indicated Allied territory, the yellow Axis powers and their allies, and the pink countries occupied by the Axis powers.  

The maps are a free resource accessible for students at teachers on the Library’s educational website, The Holocaust Explained. This website is a free resource for students and teachers around the world. In 2023 over 2 million people from over 150 countries accessed The Holocaust Explained. 

On this site, students and educators can explore the maps embedded in relevant sections where they are further contextualised. The maps can also be downloaded as a standalone resource from a dedicated section on the website here. The education team has also produced an educational resource, showing how each of the maps could be used in a classroom setting and suggesting learning outcomes, available here.