Records of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in the Lithuanian Central State Archives
Scope and Content Note
The materials in this collection document Jewish communal and cultural life in Poland, Lithuania, Russia, and in other communities around the world.
They include the records of the YIVO Institute itself, namely the Philological Section, in Shipping List 1, the Ethnographic Committee, in Shipping List 9, the Historical Section, in Shipping List 11, and the Administration in Shipping List 13-4. They also include the records of activities undertaken by YIVO itself or close YIVO associates, such as the Autobiography contest, in Shipping List 7 and Shipping List 21, and the Tcherikower archive documenting the pogroms, in Shipping Lists 2 and 10. They include part of the records of Zalman Reisen's correspondence to contributors to his Leksikon fun der yidisher literatur, prese un filologie (Lexicon of Yiddish Literature, Press and Philology), in Shipping Lists 5 and 20.
Theatrical materials held in this collection include the records of the Esther Rachel Kaminska Theater Museum, in Shipping Lists 3, 8, and 28; and the Yidisher Artistn Farayn, in Shipping List 12. A portion of the papers of Siegfried Bernfeld, organizer of the Zionist youth movement in Austria, can be found in Shipping List 22.
Materials documenting the history of the Jewish community of Vilna can be found in the records of the Vilna Kehillah, in Shipping Lists 6 and 17, and the Vilna Territorial Collection in Shipping List 15. Records of the Jewish community in Poland can be found in Shipping List 16. YIVO collections of materials relating to other countries can be found in Shipping List 27.
Materials relating to Jewish education can be found in the records of VILBIG in Shipping List 19, the records of the Rabbinical School and Teachers' Seminary in Shipping List 25, and the records of TSYSHO in Shipping List 26.
Religious life is documented in the records of the Vaad Hayeshivot in Shipping List 29 and a collection of Rabbinic and Historic Manuscripts in Shipping List 28.
Due to the time constraints under which these materials were arranged, some items remained identified but unsorted after the bulk of the materials had been arranged and described. These fragments can be found in Shipping Lists 24, 30, and 32. Photographs which did not clearly belong elsewhere were separated into their own Shipping List, Shipping List 31. The final Shipping Lists, 23 and 33, are comprised of materials that were taken out of their original collections by YIVO archivists for an exhibition at YIVO in New York in 1994.
With the exception of Shipping Lists 24, 30, and 32, each Shipping List of this collection corresponds to a record group of materials held at YIVO in New York. A concordance between the Shipping List of this collection and YIVO record groups can be found below.
Dates
- c.1750-1944
Language of Materials
Materials are in Polish, Yiddish, Russian, German, Esperanto, Hebrew, Romanian; Moldavian; Moldovan, English, Lithuanian, French, Spanish; Castilian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Danish, Dutch; Flemish, Hungarian, Portuguese, Finnish, and Latvian.
Access Restrictions
Permission to use the collection must be obtained from the YIVO Archivist.
Use Restrictions
Permission to publish part or parts of the collection must be obtained from the YIVO Archives. For more information, contact:
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011
email: archives@yivo.cjh.org
Historical Note
The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research was founded in Wilno (Vilna), Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1925 as the Yiddish Scientific Institute, a center for scholarly research. YIVO began intensively collecting historical documents, artifacts, interviews on folk customs, books, and periodicals through a worldwide network of volunteer collectors and amateur ethnographers. During its time in Vilna it succeeded in amassing one of the world's largest Jewish libraries and archives.
These collections were looted during World War II at the hands of the Einsatzstab Rosenberg, a special detail of the Nazi Party's Office of Foreign Affairs. The Einsatzstab Rosenberg shipped off anything thought to be of value to the Institut Zur Erforschung der Judenfrage (Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question) in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1947, YIVO, by then relocated to New York, was able, with the help of the U.S. Army, to recover many of the documents and books that the Nazis had shipped to Germany.
Other documents, including those represented in this collection, were hidden in Vilna during the war by the Jews who were forced by the Nazis to sort the materials. These men and women, known as the "Paper Brigade," risked their lives to smuggle some of the documents to hiding places in the Vilna Ghetto. After the war, some of what they had hidden was recovered but needed to be rescued once again, this time from the Soviets. A Lithuanian librarian, Antanas Ulpis, head of the Lithuanian Book Chamber located in the St. George church and monastery, rescued thousands of the documents by hiding them. For over forty years it was believed that they had been destroyed. It was only in 1988 during the period of Glasnost that YIVO learned of their existence.
These materials are now held by the Lithuanian Central State Archives in Fond 287. In 1994, an agreement was signed permitting the documents in this collection to temporarily be transferred to New York, where they were cataloged by YIVO archivists and conserved by preservation experts. The materials were then transferred back to Lithuania. In 2015, YIVO and the Lithuanian Central State Archives began a joint project to digitize the documents as part of what is now entitled the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections Project. The original documents remain in the custody of the Lithuanian Central State Archives.
Extent
143.4 Linear Feet
Abstract
The materials in this collection document the activities of a wide range of organizations and individuals whose materials were donated to or collected by the YIVO Archives in Vilna before the war, and the activities of YIVO itself. They include documentation on Jewish communal and cultural life in Poland, Lithuania, Russia, and in other communities around the world.
Arrangement
These materials are arranged on the basis of shipping lists: the results of a collaborative project between YIVO and Lithuanian Central State Archive in the 1990s, in which YIVO archivists arranged and described the materials before returning them to Lithuania. The materials were returned in 33 shipments, and the 33 shipments of materials each constitute a sub-section of the overall collection. YIVO archivists arranged the materials so as to correspond to the record groups at YIVO in New York. The internal arrangement of each Shipping List reflects the arrangement of the primary collection to the extent possible. A concordance between YIVO record groups and the shipping lists can be found below.
- Shipping List 1: YIVO Vilna Philological Section (RG 1.4), undated, 1925-1939
- Shipping List 2: Mizrakh Yidisher Historisher Archiv (RG 80), undated, 1917-1921
- Shipping List 3: Esther-Rachel Kaminska Theater Museum Archive (RG 8), undated, 1910-1932
- Shipping List 4: YIVO Ethnographic Committee (RG 1.2), 1923-1939
- Shipping List 5: Yiddish Literature and Language (RG 3), undated, 1905-1939
- Shipping List 6: Vilna Jewish Community Council (Kehillah) (RG 10), 1892-1936
- Shipping List 7: Autobiographies of Jewish Youth in Poland (RG 4), 1930s
- Shipping List 8: Esther-Rachel Kaminska Theater Museum Archive (RG 8), undated, 1904-1923
- Shipping List 9: YIVO Ethnographic Committee (RG 1.2), undated, 1924-1939
- Shipping List 10: Mizrakh Yidisher Historisher Arkhiv (RG 80), 1898-1937, bulk: 1919-1922
- Shipping List 11: YIVO Vilna Historical Section (Tcherikower Archive) (RG 82), 1916-1936
- Shipping List 12: Jewish Actors' Union in Poland (Yidisher Artistn Farayn) (RG 26), 1919-1939
- Shipping List 13: YIVO-Vilna Administration Records (RG 1.1), 1925-1941
- Shipping List 14: YIVO-Vilna Administration Records (RG 1.1), 1925-1942
- Shipping List 15: Collection on Vilna (RG 29), 1849-1944
- Shipping List 16: Collection on Poland (Vilna Archives) (RG 28), 1911-1939
- Shipping List 17: Vilna Jewish Community Council (Kehillah) (RG 10), 1923-1940
- Shipping List 18: Esther-Rachel Kaminska Theater Museum Archive (RG 8), circa 1890s-1930s
- Shipping List 19: Records of the VILBIG (Vilner Yidishe Bildungs Gezelshaft) (RG 11), 1923-1940
- Shipping List 20: Yiddish Literature and Language (RG 3), undated, 1902-1940
- Shipping List 21: Autobiographies of Jewish Youth in Poland (RG 4), 1912-1939
- Shipping List 22: Siegfried Bernfeld Papers (RG 6), circa 1900-1934
- Shipping List 23: Exhibition items, undated, 1794-1942
- Shipping List 24: Supplements of Various Record Groups, undated, 1832-1941
- Shipping List 25: Records of the Rabbinical School and Teachers' Seminary, Vilna (RG 24), undated, 1845-1914
- Shipping List 26: Records of the TSYSHO and TSBK School System (RG 48), 1920-1940
- Shipping List 27: Territorial Collection (RG 33), undated, 1894-1942
- Shipping List 28: Rabbinical and Historical Manuscripts (RG 128), undated, c. 1750-1940
- Shipping List 29: Records of the Vaad Hayeshivot (Vilna, Poland) (RG 25), 1924-1940
- Shipping List 30: Supplements of Various Record Groups, undated, 1842-1942
- Shipping List 31: Photographs (RG 9), undated, 1859-1941
- Shipping List 32: Miscellaneous Unclassified Materials, undated, 1864-1939
- Shipping List 33: Exhibition items, undated, 1832-1840, 1893, 1903, 1916, 1921-1931
Other Finding Aid
This finding aid is based on the paper finding aids generated by the YIVO archivists of the 1990s, held at the YIVO archives in New York. These same finding aids can also be found at the Lithuanian Central State Archives, where they comprise the folder list portion of the finding aid. There are also finding aids related to each related collection held at the YIVO Archives in New York. Links to the finding aids to these related collections can be found above.
Acquisition Information
These materials were part of the YIVO archives in Vilna (Wilno), Poland before World War II. During the war, they were hidden to protect them from looting by the Nazis. After the war, they were recovered by those who hid them and survived to return to Vilna. Early in the postwar Soviet occupation of Lithuania, they were hidden again, by Lithuanian librarian, Antanas Ulpis, in the Lithuanian Book Chamber located in the St. George church and monastery. They are now held at the Central State Archives of Lithuania.
Processing information
In 1994, an agreement was signed permitting the documents in this collection to temporarily be transferred to New York, where they were cataloged by YIVO archivists and conserved by preservation experts. YIVO archivists described the materials, sending them back to Lithuania in 33 batches. Because of the nature of this process there are some irregularities in the arrangement of this collection. For example, one collection may be represented in several Shipping List, such as the Kaminska Theater Museum which is represented in Shipping Lists 3, 8, and 18. This finding aid was created as part of the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project in partnership with the Lithuanian Central State Archives.
Additional description of lists 15-18 and 20-33 was created by Sarah Glover, Rachel Harrison and Andrey Filimonov in 2019-2020.
- Authors, Yiddish
- Bibliographies
- Cherikover, I. M., 1881-1943
- Correspondence
- Education, Higher -- Europe, Eastern
- Ephemera (general object genre)
- Folklore
- Jews -- Study and teaching
- Kaminska, Esther Rachel, 1870-1925
- Manuscripts (documents)
- Plays (performing arts compositions)
- Poland
- Rejzen, Zalman, 1887-1941
- Research notes
- Russia
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
- Weinreich, Max, 1894-1969
- YIVO Archives
- Yiddish language
- Yidisher ṿisnshafṭlekher insṭiṭuṭ
- Title
- Guide to the Records of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in the Lithuanian Central State Archives c.1750-1944 RG 8000
- Author
- Processed by the YIVO archivists of the 1990s, including Marek Web, Fruma Mohrer, and Chana Mlotek.
- Date
- ©2020
- Language of description
- Undetermined
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Description is in English.
- Sponsor
- Digitized at the Lithuanian Central State Archives and further described by Jessica Podhorcer and Sarah Ponichtera in 2016 as part of the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections Project.
Revision Statements
- May 2017: dao links for Shipping List 1 added by Leanora Lange.
- June 19, 2017: dao links for Shipping List 2-4 added by Leanora Lange.
- August 15, 2017: dao links for Shipping List 5 description for Shipping List 6 added by Leanora Lange.
- August 21, 2017: dao links for Shipping List 6 added by Leanora Lange.
- September 11, 2017: dao links for Shipping List 7 added by Leanora Lange.
- September 13, 2017: dao links for Shipping List 8 added by Leanora Lange.
- September 19, 2017: dao links for Shipping List 9 except folder 66 added by Leanora Lange.
- October 2017: dao links for Shipping Lists 10 and 11 added by Leanora Lange.
- December 5, 2017: dao links for Shipping List 12 added by Leanora Lange.
- January 22, 2018: dao links for Shipping List 13 folders 1-125 added by Leanora Lange.
- April 25, 2018: multipart folder titles corrected for Shipping Lists 1 and 13 by Devora Geller
- June 3, 2020: Imported EAD with additional description of lists 15-18 and 20-33 created by Sarah Glover, Rachel Harrison and Andrey Filimonov in 2019-2020.
Repository Details
Part of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Repository
