The library catalogue

Since its inception in 1943, the collections of the library of the Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation have focused on:

• The persecution and destruction of the Jews of Europe
• The second world war
• Resistance to Nazism.

Today, 32,000 works in various languages (French, English, German, Polish, etc.) are available to the public, including books, journals, university research papers, Yizker Bikher (memorial books commemorating Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust), press reviews and clippings and periodicals. A large collection of documents (books and periodicals) in Yiddish and Hebrew can also be consulted on request.

The multi-disciplinary collections cover the persecution and extermination of Europe’s Jews, the Resistance, the Second World War and anti-Semitism from various perspectives.

The library is not limited to the Holocaust. It also has collections on the interwar period, the persecution of other groups and the 20th-century history of Jewish communities around the world.

The library possesses many rare works, including collections of clandestine texts, testimonies written and published immediately after the war, writings by collaborators, Nazi propaganda recovered at the Nuremberg trials and a large group of materials on the Dreyfus affair.

AN ABRIDGED VERSION OF THE CATALOGUE IS AVAILABLE ON THIS WEBSITE.

Part of the center’s digitized catalog can be consulted online. Several databases are available in their entirety in the Shoah Memorial’s reading room. The abridged version is expanded and developed on a regular basis. Some collections, in particular documents and photographs from private sources, will not be put online.

Any reproduction requests must be made in person at the Memorial. Visitors wishing to obtain photocopies of documents are kindly requested to go to the documentation center’s reading room.

The online catalogue includes the following databases:

• The catalogue of the CDJC’s collections, which cover the history of the Second World War, anti-Semitism, Jewish communities in the 19th and 20th centuries and the Holocaust. So far, the CDJC archives have over a million original pieces, the photo library 90,000 images (84,000 photographs, 3,000 original posters and 3,000 cards), the library 30,000 books and 2,000 periodical titles and the video library several thousand testimonies, documentaries and films. Only some of the collections (archives, photos and posters) are now accessible online.
• The database of victims of anti-Semitic persecution in France, including the names of Jews deported from France engraved on the Wall of Names as well as those who died in internment camps in France, internees and victims of executions of whom some trace has been found. This database is continuously expanded and updated with testimonies by families.
• The database of Jewish Resistance members listed by the Association des Anciens de la Résistance Juive en France (ARJF-OJC). The names of Jewish members of various organizations such as FTP-MOI (Francs Tireurs Partisans), FFI (French Forces for the Interior) and FFL (Free French Forces) will be added later.
• The Righteous of France database, compiled by Yad Vashem (Israel). This database has the names of French citizens who saved Jews in France or Europe as well as non-French citizens who saved Jews in France.

Two kinds of searches are possible:

• A comprehensive search of all online data, including the catalogue collections (archives, photographs and posters) and databases of individual names (victims, Jewish Resistance members and the Righteous).
• A differentiated search of people or collections, which can be narrowed down with the words "and", "or" and "except" and the symbols * and %. For more information, see "help online".

SEARCH THE CATALOGUE

> The documentation center’s opening times [LINK: hours]

Information: contact the library