International Holocaust Remembrance Day is commemorated each year on January 27. The United Nations General Assembly designated this day as it is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by Soviet forces. The purpose of International Holocaust Remembrance Day is to serve as a date for the official commemoration of the victims of the Nazi regime and to promote Holocaust education. We here at the Unwritten Record wanted to share past blogs about the Holocaust in an effort to help promote education on the topic.
The Motion Picture Preservation Lab and the Moving Image and Sound Branch worked on several projects in conjunction with other repositories and museums. The following blog post discusses one such project and shows how film footage is used to further our understanding of the Holocaust.
Footage in our holdings can also provide Holocaust survivors and their family the opportunity to see family members again. The following blogs highlight two such stories.
Our holdings also include footage and audio recordings from military trials held after World War II. During the trials, prosecutors used film footage of war crimes to help convict defendants. The following blog discusses one of the most well-known of those trials, the Nuremberg Trial, and how film footage was used as evidence.
NARA also has in its holdings still photographs documenting the Holocaust. Below are two blogs discussing the holdings of the Still Picture Branch.
In addition to our blog, you can find Holocaust-related records in NARA’s online catalog. Motion picture records documenting these events can be found in the following Record Groups:
18-SFP: Motion Picture Films from the “Special Film Project” Program Series, ca. 1945-ca. 1945
238: Motion Picture Films Used as Exhibits and Evidence at World War II War Crimes Trails
UN-UN: Motion Picture Releases of the Universal Newsreel Library, 1929-1967
111-ADC: Moving Images Relating to Military Activities, 1947-1964
ANRC-ANRC: Records of the American National Red Cross
338: Records of U.S. Army Operational, Tactical, and Support Organizations
18-CS: Motion Picture Films from the “Combat Subjects” Program Series, ca. 1939-ca.1945
342-USAF: Moving Images Relating to Military Aviation Activities, 1947-1984
NARA holds millions of records created or received by the U.S. Government during and after World War II that document Nazi war crimes, wartime refugee issues, and activities and investigations of U.S. Government agencies involved in the identification and recovery of looted assets as well as captured German records used as evidence at the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg, U.S. military tribunals at Nuremberg, and U.S. Army courts. You can learn more about our holdings by visiting the Holocaust-Related Records Portal.