Research

We’re proud to be one of the leading voices in the UK for research-led public engagement, education, and heritage practice about the history and memory of the Holocaust and genocide. 

Research at The Wiener Holocaust Library

Research is at the foundation of everything The Wiener Holocaust Library does, and ultimately helps both us and our audiences understand our collections better.

We use research at the Library for:

  • assessing and acquiring collections that are relevant and making them accessible through our catalogue and digital resources;
  • developing resources and programming for our educational initiatives;
  • supporting personal journeys into family research, including for legal claims, citizenship applications and compensation;
  • curating our research-led digital collections resources; exhibitions and events;
  • and sustaining funding for our core work for the future.

Our existing partnerships, such as the Holocaust and Genocide Research Partnership and the future EHRI-UK national node, are vital vehicles through which some of our research aims are delivered.

We participate in smaller and large-scale research projects, often by offering some of our core services in-kind in exchange for networking and bringing in new audiences within the orbit of our work.

Our Expertise

We lend our expertise, drawing upon our rich collections, to initiatives across the sector, serving as a hub for research. The WHL’s in-house expertise includes historical, educational, curatorial, librarianship, information management, languages, digitalisation and archival expertise. We conduct in-house research and cultivate expertise for a wide range of audiences, current and future, and aim to:

  • Offer the greatest possible access to our collection of unique archival materials and an up-to-date collection of published works on the Holocaust and genocide.
  • Provide care, advice and management of archival collections, including paper, photo, and digital records.
  • Help navigate users through materials we hold (including in our Reading Room reference services and via our ITS research support), as well as assist with translation and interpretation, where possible.
  • Provide expert advisory contributions to media stories, schools and community-led projects, documentaries and feature films, medium- and large-scale academic research projects, partnered exhibitions and Library-curated exhibitions, academic and lay publications, family history memoirs, and education projects and heritage initiatives, such as new digitisation projects, among others.
  • Provide research-led commentary on key issues of contemporary relevance.

Research Priorities (2023-2025)

We accept proposals for bids for joint research projects, and favour proposals that offer opportunities for co-design of projects at the earliest stages and that meet our thresholds for project, staffing and other support for costs. The Library’s Senior Management Team reviews proposals quarterly and reserve the right to decline proposals that do not fit our mission, values or priorities.

We prioritise proposals for partnered research projects that:

  • Enhance our staff and other resources (for ex., consultant fees, technical support, or part-time funded placements for PGRs to develop exhibitions, provide administrative support, and/or bring in new expertise to enhance our offerings).
  • Draw on our collections.
  • Grow our collections.
  • Complement our activities.
  • Use or complement existing infrastructure (such as the Refugee Map) to help sustain our activities.
  • Build our reputational profile as thought leaders in the field, highlighting our USPs to diverse audiences and reinforcing the contemporary relevance of our collections.
  • Align with our core institutional values, including our ethical approach to family research.


Thematically, we favour a focus on the following subject areas of particular interest. These are not exclusive and have distinct overlapping themes, but our collections and staff expertise are particularly aligned with these themes.

  • Post-World War II Reckonings and Resources
  • Family Histories and Jewish Responses
  • Genocide
  • Refugees and Forced Migration
  • Literary and Artistic Responses to the Holocaust and Genocide

If you are interested in potential partnered projects, contact Dr Christine Schmidt, Deputy Director and Head of Research, for further information.

 
Heritage Fund The Association of Jewish Refugees Federal Foreign Office
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