Library Research Guides: HIST 302: World War II as Memory & Myth: Primary Sources

EuroDocs
Rich array of digitized material organized by country, then chronologically
Archives Direct
The collection of foreign office files and confidential print files for various world regions on trade, treaties, and diplomacy from the perspective of the British government.
Wilson Center Digital Archive
Declassified foreign government documents on 20th century international relations & diplomacy
American Memory
Fantastic collection of material digitized by the Library of Congress; freely available on the Web. Posters, sheet music, ads, newsclippings, and much more.
Arolsen Archives
Thousands of documents divided by type and location detailing National Socialist persecution and the Holocaust.
Nuremberg Trials Project
Harvard University Law School Library's digital collection
Oral Histories of Holocaust Survivors
includes survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto
Video Testimonies of Survivors - UCLA
Gallica
The digital presence of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. It contains millions of digitized newspapers, magazines, images, and sound recordings relating to France and French history and culture.
Densho Digital Repository
Historic photographs, documents, newspapers, letters etc. that tell the story of the Japanese American community, from immigration to the WWII incarceration and its aftermath.
Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study Digital Archive
The archive reproduces a research project initiated in 1942 at UC-Berkeley, which documented & examined the mass internment of Japanese Americans by embedding Nisei social science students recruited from the Berkeley campus into selected internment sites.
Civil Rights Digital Library
TV news broadcasts & many other primary sources, 1954-1964, from the University of Georgia.

Race Relations in America This link opens in a new window
Speeches, reports, surveys and analyses from the Race Relations Department and its annual Institute (Fisk University 1943-1970), including those by Institute participants including eminent sociologists, civil rights activists, anthropologists, industry leaders, and others.

Center for Jewish History
A major research center for Jewish history, CJH has gathered electronic resources.
Yad Vashem
World center for holocaust research, education & commemoration.
Blavatnik Archive
"The Blavatnik Archive is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to preserving and disseminating primary source materials that contribute to the study of 20th century Jewish and world history, with a special emphasis on World War I, World War II, and Soviet Russia...includes photographs, diaries, letters, postcards, video testimonies and more."

Hoover Institution Political Poster Collection
Over 30,000 political and cultural posters primarily from the mid-20th century, including 6,000 British posters.
Propaganda Poster Collection
Use date limits to limit to WWII.
Library of Congress Newspaper Image Search
A new tool from LoC lets you search for images by keyword - 1900-1963.
EUscreen
European TV and audio broadcasts, 1900-present
World Newsreels online, 1929-1966
Includes Universal Newsreels, Universal Studios, Les Actualites Francaises, Nippon News and The March of Time. Produced from 1929 through the early post-war period.
British Pathe Films
Newsreel films on politics, sport, popular culture, foreign culture, and more.
Hoover Institution Cold War Sources
Over 5600 primary sources on the Cold War like radio broadcasts, photos, speeches, and more.
AAPB: American Archive of Public Broadcasting
Archive of the most significant public television & radio programs of the past 60 years.
David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
Enormous historical map collection searchable by keyword, geographic area, subject, and time period.
Cartoon Drawings from the Library of Congress
Offers more than 9,000 original drawings for editorial cartoons, caricatures, and comic strips spanning the late 1700s to the present, primarily from 1880 to 1980. The cartoons cover people and events throughout the world, but most of the images were intended for publication in American newspapers and magazines.
Library of Congress: Manzanar Internment Camp Photographs
Ansel Adams' 1943 photographs of internment camp Manzanar in California.
DEFA Film Library
The DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, founded by Professor Barton Byg in 1993, is the only archive and research center outside of Germany devoted to a broad spectrum of filmmaking from and related to the former GDR.

Films are not available to watch online, but you can use this as an index to learn the titles of films for research.

New York Times, 1851-2020 This link opens in a new window
Full-text replica from 1851 to 2020 that includes graphics and ads.
Times Digital Archive, 1765-2010 This link opens in a new window
Full-text replica of the premier British newspaper, including graphics and ads, searchable by article type.
Guardian and the Observer (UK), 1791-2003 This link opens in a new window
Digitized full-text of the British newspaper The Guardian (1821–2003) and its sister paper, The Observer (1791–2003).
Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) This link opens in a new window
Broadcasts, news agency transmissions, and government statements from around the globe translated into English, 1941-1996. Particularly strong in Soviet satellite states.
Current Digest of the Russian Press This link opens in a new window
A selection of Russian-language press materials in translation, 1949 to present. Formerly the Current Digest of the Soviet Press and the Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press.
Service Newspapers of World War Two This link opens in a new window
Over 300 titles from key nations across the globe, keeping troops informed and connected. Titles from all key theatres are featured, including some non-English material.

BBC Monitoring: International Reports
Foreign media in translation.
Library of Congress: Japanese Internment Camp Newspapers
Thousands of page from 29 newspaper titles published in internment camps.

African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new window
270 newspapers published in 36 states, including rare 19th-century titles.
African American Periodicals, 1825-1995 This link opens in a new window
More than 170 academic and political journals, commercial magazines, institutional newsletters, organizations' bulletins, annual reports and other genres, by and about African Americans.

U.S. National WWII Memorial
Normandy American Cemetery & Memorial
National Park Service: Japanese Internment
The NPS site on internment, with contextual and visiting information.
UK War Memorials Register