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New Collaboration between JDC Archives and Memorial de la Shoah

Apr 3, 2013

The JDC Archives and Memorial de la Shoah, the Holocaust museum in Paris, France, have entered into a partnership to catalogue and digitize the JDC Oral History Collection. The collection documents the work of JDC through interviews with staff and lay leaders who served across the globe between the 1930s and 1980s, as well as interviews with staff of related organizations.

Long-time JDC staff member and executive Herbert Katzki, who began his career with JDC in Paris in the 1940s, initiated the JDC oral history program after his retirement in 1979. Through dozens of interviews, Katzki captured the memories and inside stories of those who, like him, had travelled the globe in order to carry out the JDC mission of rescue, relief and rehabilitation. The collection includes stirring recollections of work to provide critical aid to those in need during the Holocaust and its aftermath, dramatic rescue operations bringing immigrants to Israel, the establishment of essential social services in the nascent State of Israel, and more.

During the year-long project, JDC will digitize audio cassettes and transcripts of interviews, create a finding aid and launch an online portal for exploring collection excerpts. The digitized materials will be available to researchers as part of the research collections of both the JDC Archives and the Memorial de la Shoah.

Memorial de la Shoah is a museum and documentation center serving over 200,000 visitors a year, presenting exhibitions, public programs, teacher trainings and film screenings. The Memorial holds extensive and wide-ranging archival collections, including the records of the Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation.

The JDC Archives is delighted to partner with Memorial de la Shoah in preserving and providing access to this important archival collection.