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December 9, 2010 — In addition to this week's NewsBreak(s), the editors have compiled the Weekly News Digest, featuring stories from the week just past that you should know about. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today. CLICK HERE to view all of this week's Weekly News Digest items.

Gale to Digitize McMaster University’s Holocaust and Resistance Collections

Nearly 2,000 poignant letters in several different languages from or to prisoners in Dachau, Buchenwald, and Auschwitz, as well as in Gestapo prisons and POW camps, comprise much of the collection’s material. In many instances there are 20 letters or more written by the same prisoner, an uncommon feature in such a collection when often only a single letter survives. There is also a diary of the Nazi evacuation from Ravensbrück (women’s concentration camp) as well as a hand-fashioned recipe book which prisoners exchanged among themselves. This collection also includes books, posters, magazines, newspapers, and air-drop leaflets.

In addition, Gale will digitize materials from the Jewish underground resistance collection, including documents from the personal collection of David Diamant, a Jewish communist and committed member of the underground resistance during World War II. The documents, which are mainly in French and Yiddish, deal primarily with the Jewish segment of the French underground resistance, with many of the documents originating from communist groups and some from Polish groups. Documents on prisoners and deportations, as well as songs and poems from prisoners are included.

Gale began digitizing this collection in November and expects to make the first part available to customers as part of Gale’s Archives Unbound starting in spring 2011.

Source: Gale