Three archivists and three librarians have been conserving the documents at YIVO in New York, while a third of the archive remains in Vilnius, Lithuania.

After the project is completed within seven years, the documents scattered during the Holocaust will constitute a new virtual library with descriptions in English and Lithuanian.

Executive director of the YIVO Jonathan Brent told Baltic News Service: “We plan to process about a million and a half documents and about ten thousand books and to add this material to what we have in Vilnius.”

“Work has begun here and in Vilnius with books and manuscripts. This is a seven-year project. The people working on it have to know Polish, Russian, Yiddish and Lithuanian languages,” Brent said.

The YIVO, or Yiddish Research Institute, was founded in Vilnius in 1925 and operated there until World War II, collecting material and performing research on Jewish life across Europe. Collections included Jewish folklore, memoirs, books and publications and Jewish community documents and the YIVO published dictionaries, brochures and monographs. Most of the documents, some of which date back to the 17th century, are written in Yiddish and Hebrew.

Following the Nazi occupation, some of the archival material from Vilnius ended up in Frankfurt. The US Army sent this material to New York, where YIVO had set up its headquarters in exile.

Some of the YIVO material which survived the destruction of the Vilna ghetto was conserved by Lithuanian librarian Antanas Ulpis, who hid the documents in the St. Jurgis Church. They resurfaced after Lithuania regained independence in the early 1990s.

Project partners in Lithuania include the Lithuanian Central Archive and the Martynas Mažvydas National Library. Archive workers report it frequently occurs that part of a set of documents is located in Vilnius and the other part in New York.

Brent said: “When I was in Lithuania, some documents were still in boxes, rolled up in scrolls. When I unfurled them, there was dust from the Vilna ghetto. This isn’t just an academic research project, it’s a project to restore history. The preservation of this material is an example of true cultural cooperation and understanding, important to Lithuania as well as Jewish history.”

The digitization project will cost upwards of 5 million euros, with the YIVO seeking financing from private and public sources, and Lithuanian institutions contributing to the project.

“There have always been people who have sought to preserve something. We cannot say there were only killers and only victims. This project will help average people to understand the complexity of history. … Speaking frankly, I think the Lithuanian, Polish, Jewish and Russian world has not fully recovered from the war. Through this project we are seeking to help restore our collective memory,” Brent said.

Julius Pranevičius, Lithuania’s consul general in New York, told BNS the material in the YIVO archives not only provides a glimpse of Jewish life in Eastern and Central Europe but also contains unique documents and photographs of the people, customs and architecture of Lithuanian cities and towns.

“The YIVO archives should be a fascinating source of information for Lithuanians who want to understand the multicultural history of their country,” the consul general said.

For more information in Lithuanian, see >>there