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OVERVIEW
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Paper Conservator Anne Marigza is mounting a poster for the Museum's exhibit, State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda.
USHMM
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The Collections Division
The Collections Division of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum consists of eight branches: Archives, Art and Artifacts, Film and Video, Music, Oral History, Photo Archives, Collections Management, and Conservation. Together these branches are responsible for the acquisition, registration, preservation, storage, cataloging, reference, and reproduction of the thousands of collections housed in the Museum and displayed in its exhibitions, publications, and on its Web site.
The Collections Division identifies, collects, and preserves the documentary, photographic, and artifactual record of the Holocaust and makes it available for research and display. It seeks to enhance the accessibility of this material through user-friendly databases, online catalogs, web presentations, and extensive reference service.
The Museum Collection
The Museum has one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Holocaust-related materials in the world. Included in its holdings are works of art, artifacts, photographs, archival documents, manuscripts, historical footage, music and sound recordings, and oral testimonies.
Scope
The Collections of the Museum cover a broad range of subject areas pertaining to the history of the Holocaust. These include:
- Jewish life in Europe before the Holocaust
- The rise to power of the Nazi movement in Germany and Austria
- The flight of European refugees from Nazi Germany and refugee communities around the world
- Nazi racial science and the propaganda campaign against Jews, Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), and the mentally and physically handicapped
- Nazi anti-Jewish policy in the 1930s, from the boycott through Kristallnacht
- Nazi persecution of Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, political dissidents, Poles, and Soviet prisoners of war
- The invasion and occupation of eastern and western Europe
- The roundup, deportation, and resettlement of European Jewry
- The mass shootings conducted by mobile killing squads
- Ghettos, concentration camps, and killing centers
- Nazi collaborators and satellite states
- Resistance, rescue, and life in hiding during the Holocaust
- The liberation of Europe and the disclosure of Nazi concentration camps
- The war crimes trials
- The displaced persons camps
- Legal and illegal immigration to Palestine
- Postwar immigration to the Americas
- Holocaust assets and restitution
- Holocaust memorials and commemoration
Types of Materials
The Museum’s holdings include:
- Art: period drawings, prints, sculpture, posters, and other creative works
- Books and pamphlets
- Broadsides, advertisements, and maps
- Film and video historical footage, audio and video oral testimonies; music and sound recordings
- Furnishings, architectural fragments, models, machinery, and tools
- Microfilm and microfiche of government documents and other official records
- Personal effects, ritual objects, jewelry, musical instruments, and numismatics (currency)
- Personal papers: documents, correspondence, memoirs, and scrapbooks
- Photographs and photo albums
- Textiles: uniforms, costumes, clothing, badges, armbands, flags, and banners
Donations
The Archives Branch seeks to augment its collection of personal papers, oral history, music and sound recordings, films, and original photographs related to the Holocaust. If you have such materials and are willing to donate them to the Museum, please contact the Archives at (202) 488-6113.
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