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Mount Royal University

Library

Primary Sources Related to the Holocaust

Primary sources in History and related disciplines refer to documents or artifacts created at the point in time under study. For more primary sources and advice for finding them, see the Primary Sources tab on this page. 

Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonials

Mount Royal University Library is a partner site with Yale University, providing access to the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonials. The Archive contains more than 4500 interviews with individuals who experienced, first-hand, the Nazi persecutions, including survivors, those in hiding, bystanders, resistants and liberators. Testimonies were recorded in the language preferred by the witness and vary in length from half an hour to 40+ hours.

Videos from the Archive may only be viewed on the MRU campus, or at another partner location. Members of both the MRU campus and the broader community are welcome to access the Archive from our location.

For more information, visit the Archive website.

To access the Fortunoff Archives:

  1. Create an account. Follow the Login, then the Join now links and complete the online form.
  2. After you submit the form, you will receive a confirmation email. You may need to check your spam folder. Once you receive the email, you must click on the confirmation link within 24 hours to activate your account.
  3. Return to the Fortunoff search platform, login if necessary, and search for a testimony. Click on a testimony in the search results and request access. You only need to request access to one testimony to obtain viewing rights for the entire collection. You should receive an approval email within a few minutes of your request.
  4. Once you receive the approval email, if you are on the MRU campus, you can begin to view testimonies. You may need to refresh your browser.

Conditions of use

  1. Downloading, copying or distributing of the videos is not permitted.

  2. Quotation or citation from the archive for use in published works of any kind, including but not limited to, scholarly journals, dissertations and theses is expressly prohibited without prior written permission. Contact the Archive for more information or to request permission.

Journals Related to the Holocaust

For access to more databases and articles, visit the Articles tab on this page. The best starting point for finding articles on the Holocaust is in the database Historical Abstracts.  For Canadian and U.S. contexts, use the database America History and Life.

Background Sources

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Alice Swabey
Contact:
Drop-in help Mondays 12-2 at the Library Service Desk. Appointments available via Google Meet or in-person. Email help is also available.
Email: aswabey@mtroyal.ca