The Territorial Collection Poland 1 is comprised of documents that were amassed at the YIVO in New York City. The Collection is of a mixed provenance and fragmentary nature. The commonality between the documents contained within this collection is that they all pertain to Jews in Poland prior to 1939. Documents of earlier years are also included. Collection consists of letters, essays, reports, correspondence, and clippings which pertain to the political situation, economic conditions, and cultural activities of Polish Jews.

The Territorial Collection, Poland 2 is comprised of documents that were amassed at the YIVO in New York City. The collection is of mixed provenance and is fragmentary in nature, consisting of miscellaneous materials dating back to World War II and its immediate aftermath. The Territorial Collection Poland 2 is a portion of the greater Territorial Collection (RG 116), which incorporates materials that are relevant to over 42 different countries and geographical regions. The overarching theme of the collection Poland 2 is the annihilation of the Jewish life in Poland under the Nazi rule. Chronologically, the Territorial Collection Poland 2 follows the Territorial Collection Poland 1, which pertains to pre-World War II Poland; and precedes the Territorial Collection Poland 3, which pertains to post-World War II Poland.

The collection was donated to the YIVO Institute by Hersch Wasser of Warsaw, Poland (before 1950) and Tel-Aviv, Israel (1950). Hersch Wasser was an inmate of the Warsaw Ghetto from 1940 until 1943. He was an associate of Emanuel Ringelblum and secretary of the Warsaw Ghetto underground archive, code named Oyneg Shabes, organized by Ringelblum for the purpose of gathering documentation and testimonies on the situation of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. After the war Hersch Wasser was instrumental in rescuing the archive.

The collection consists predominantly of documents about the life and the annihilation of Polish Jews in the period of the Nazi occupation of Poland. The documents pertain to the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and of Jewish communities in various parts of Poland in the years 1940 through 1943. Some documents are of a later date. Included are diaries, eyewitness acounts, testimonies, documents from Jewish councils, official and underground publications.

Contains the surviving papers of Rabbi Tobias Geffen who served as a rabbi in New York City (1904-1907), Canton, Ohio (1907-1910), and Atlanta, Georgia (1910-1970). Includes extensive correspondence with members of his family, autobiographies in Yiddish and English (several versions) and other material relating to his personal life.

The collection contains the records of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ), an umbrella institution for approximately 50 grassroots organizations active in the movement to free Soviet Jews. The records documenting the UCSJ's operations, programs, and campaigns relate primarily to the 1980's, when the rescue movement reached its pinnacle of success and international attention, and to the 1990's, reflecting UCSJ's work on behalf of human rights after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The records include materials of UCSJ individual councils; materials by the Soviet Jewry Legal Advocacy Center, an affiliate of UCSJ; and a large volume of case files of Prisoners of Conscience, Refuseniks, and Soviet Jews who were allowed to emigrate to the West.

Collection documents the activities and missions of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (UOJCA), primarily during the presidencies of William Weiss (1933-1942), Samuel Nirenstein (1942-1948), Moses Feuerstein (1954-1965), and Rabbi Pinchas Stolper’s tenure as Executive Vice President (1976-1994).

Founded in 1898, the UOJCA, also known as the Orthodox Union, serves as the leader, organizer, and voice of affiliated Orthodox Jewish congregations in North America. Divisions of the UOJCA reflected most prominently in the collection include the National Conference of Synagogue Youth, the Women’s Branch, the Kashruth Division, the Department of Synagogue Services, the Israel Center, as well as regional branches.

Subjects addressed in the collection include Sabbath and high holiday observance, dietary laws, Baal Teshuva, slaughterhouse legislation, funeral standards, education, and synagogue management and outreach. Materials include correspondence, minutes, clippings, speeches, UOJCA publications, financial documents, and a few photographs.

The collection is of a fragmentary nature, and consists of miscellaneous materials that pertain to the role and activities of the Vilna Chief of Police in the everyday life of the city and province of Vilna, and to the relationship between the Vilna Chief of Police and other police, military and civil organs in the Vilna province. Most of the documents in this collection, which covers the tsarist period from the 1830s to 1918, were assembled during the latter part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century

The Vilna Collection represents fragmentary materials that were part of the original YIVO Archives in Vilna before WWII. The collection includes a wide array of materials dealing with a great variety of aspects of Jewish life in the Pre-revolutionary Russian Empire and post-revolutionary Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Soviet Russia. The Collection consists of personal correspondence, official correspondence with organizations and governmental institutions, financial and statistical reports, minutes of meetings of Jewish communal and political organizations, bibliographic materials, including card catalogues and bibliographies. Also included here are vital documents, such as birth certificates and birth registers, affidavits, certificates, diplomas, and travel documents. Additionally, there are petitions, resolutions, appeals, printed materials, manuscripts, lists, and questionnaires. There is a wealth of materials dealing with Jewish book trade and publishing, youth and sports organizations, education, Jewish communal life, and political activities.

The collection contains records of the Washington Committee for Soviet Jewry, a grassroots volunteer membership organization that was founded in 1968 and existed until 2001. The organization was renamed the Greater Washington Committee for Post-Soviet Jewry after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Committee worked to raise awareness of the plight of Soviet Jewry in the United States and supported Jewish communities on the U.S.S.R. territories, during the rule of the Soviet regime and after its collapse. The records cover the period from the mid-1960s through 2001, and the bulk of the collection is dated 1970s-1980s. The documents include correspondence, memoranda, publications, news clippings, photographs, slides, ephemera, audio and video recordings and 3-D objects. Originally the collection was titled Papers of Carolyn W. Sanger, *P-870 by the name of the Committee's last president.

The Wladimir G. Eliasberg Collection documents the lives of the members of the Eliasberg family and to a lesser extent professional activities of Wladimir Eliasberg. The collection consists of personal correspondence, writings, vital and professional documents, and printed materials.

This collection consists of an estimated 320 hours of 2,000 folksongs and oral histories from 75 informants who participated in the YIVO Folksong Project directed by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (BKG) from 1973-1975, under the auspices of YIVO. This collection is a one-of-a-kind, large-scale gathering of oral histories centered around traditional Yiddish music.

Record Group 1.1, the primary collection of records from the period when YIVO was headquartered in Vilna, reflects the wide range of activities YIVO engaged in from 1925-1941. Founded as an institute for the study of Yiddish speaking Jewry, YIVO grew to become a research institute, library, archive, and graduate program in one. The collection consists primarily of administrative material such as correspondence, financial records, minutes, reports, lists, and newspaper clippings, as well as essays and publications of the Aspirantur, Division of Youth Research, and the Economic-Statistical, Psychological-Pedagogical, and Philological sections. It incorporates material generated by the Vilna office, satellite offices in Berlin, Warsaw, and New York, and by supporters and collectors throughout Poland, Europe, and indeed the world.