Jewish Studies: Oral Histories

The New York Public Library's Dorot Jewish Division's American Jewish Committee Oral History Collection holds the only complete compilation of transcripts and recordings from this 25-year project that began in the 1960s. The collection contains interviews with 2,250 individuals The American Jewish Committee interviewed individuals from all walks of life, thereby compiling a collection of oral histories documenting the Jewish experience in America. Out of this comprehensive collection of interviews, 350 of the transcripts have now been scanned and digitized; most of these are available both onsite at the Library and offsite, and the others onsite alone

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive is one of the largest and most diverse collections of Holocaust testimonies in the world.
Individuals whose experiences are represented in the collection include Jews, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, political prisoners, and others who were targeted by the Nazis and their collaborators. The collection also contains testimonies from liberators, collaborators, witnesses, and rescuers.

A growing collection of in-depth interviews with people of all ages and backgrounds, whose stories about the legacy and changing nature of Yiddish language and culture offer a rich and complex chronicle of Jewish identity.