HISTORY 201: The Historian's Craft: Holocaust in Visual Culture (Summer 2022) : Find Primary Sources
Find Primary Sources
On this page you will find information about finding primary sources:
What are Primary Sources?
Primary sources are original records created at the time historical events occurred or well after events in the form of memoirs or oral histories. They enable researchers to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period to help them understand and interpret the past. (See definition from the American Library Association's Reference & User Services Association's History Section.)
Some examples of types and formats for primary sources include:
- Books such as personal narratives, memoirs, and autobiographies, collected works, and collections of documents (these may be edited and published after the historical event or time period)
- Journal, magazine, and newspaper articles
- Government publications
- Archival sources such as diaries, interviews, letters, photographs, video recordings, and other media
Finding Primary Sources in Books Using the Library Catalog
Use the tips below to search the Library Catalog for books that contain primary sources.
- Words in Catalog records may identify an item as a primary source. Search for format-related words like advertisements, autobiographies, correspondence, documents, interviews, journal, letters, manuscripts, personal narratives, sources, speeches, etc. You can combine a primary source format word with words describing your topic (for example, personal narratives and warsaw ghetto)
- To find diaries, letters, autobiographies, personal papers, etc. by a particular person, search for the person's name as an author (for example, Schulman, Faye)
- Use the "Years" drop-down to filter results to sources published during a time period (Note: Many sources may have been written during the time period but published after the time period.)
Selected Primary Source Digital Collections
Below are several digital primary source collections that may be useful in your research.
- Experiencing History: Holocaust Sources in ContextA digital teaching and learning tool of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum featuring a diverse set of translated, contextualized, interconnected primary sources including diaries, photographs, oral histories, maps, artwork, documents, and more.
- Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance CenterWebsite of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, with digital collections, educational materials, exhibitions, and more.
- USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive OnlineCollection of audiovisual interviews with witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides. Archive access requires registration and using a username and password for future visits.
- Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust TestimoniesOver 4,400 testimonies of Holocaust survivors, witnesses and liberators from the Fortunoff Video Archive of Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University.
- Jewish Family and Children's Services Holocaust Center's Oral HistoriesThe Jewish Family and Children's Services Holocaust Center's oral history archive consists of over 2,000 audio and video testimonies with accompanying documents and transcriptions. Excerpts from interviews with camp survivors, children who survived in hiding, liberators, and individuals involved in acts of rescue and resistance are available on this site.
- German History in Documents and Images (GHDI) : Nazi Germany (1933-1945)German History in Documents and Images (GHDI) is a collection of original historical materials documenting German history from the beginning of the early modern period to the present including Nazi Germany (1933-1945).
- Correspondence from German Concentration Camps and Prisons, 1936-1945This collection consists of items originating from prisoners held in German concentration camps, internment and transit camps, Gestapo prisons, and POW camps, during and just prior to World War II.
- Human Rights Studies OnlineThis collection of primary and secondary source materials offers access to comparative documentation, analysis, and interpretation of major human rights violations and atrocity crimes worldwide, from 1900 to 2010. The collection includes multiple media formats and content types for each selected event or human rights theme, including Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Darfur, and more than 30 additional subjects.
Research Guides
See the Research Guides below for more information about primary sources. They include many more online resources including ones with historical journals, magazines and newspapers and documents.
Finding Newspapers
Historical newspapers that could be used as primary sources. Listed below are just a couple of the databases holding historic newspapers. More historical newspaper databases are listed on the Newspapers Research Guide and the Newspapers Databases page of the library website.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New York Times (1851-2016)This version of The New York Times includes full-text and full-image articles since its beginning year. Digital reproductions of every page and every article from every issue are available in downloadable PDF files.
- The Times (of London) Digital ArchiveIncludes page facsimiles of all the issues of the London Times published from 1785 - 6 years back from the present with the years rolling annually.