Archive and Museum closed

The archive and the museum will be closed from 22 December 2025 to 7 January 2026.

Thank you for your understanding!

Closing Days

Please note that on 7 October 2025, the archive, library, museum and the entire institute will be closed to the public.

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Archive closed

The archive will be closed from 27 to 31 October.

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Closing times

Dear visitors,

Please note the following closing times:

Archive: 21 July to 6 August 2025
Library: 11 to 29 August 2025

Thank you for your understanding.

Closing days of the VWI Library

The library will be closed from 22 to 24 April 2025.

Thank you for your understanding.

Closing day Museum Simon WIesenthal

The Future of Memory – Museum Simon Wiesenthal will be closed 2 May 2025.

Thank you for your understanding.

EHRI: VWI’s Marianne Windsperger elected as Vice-Chair

The European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI), now established as a permanent organisation, has adopted a new governance structure, distinct from its previous project-based framework. One important governance body is the National Coordinators Committee (NCC) that gathered for the first time in March 2025 in Zagreb. During theNCC Meeting,Rachel Pistol (UK,University of Southhampton) was elected as Chair; Marianne Windsperger (AT, Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies) was elected as Vice-Chair. She is a researcher at the VWI, member of the editorial board of the open access journal S:I.M.O.N., and a co-worker in the VWI Fellowship Programme.

Find out more about the NCC meeting here.

Ö1 Betrifft: Geschichte – „Österreich 1938“

This week from 10 to 14 March 2025, at 15:55, in ‘Betrifft: Geschichte’ on Ö1: Austria 1938 - Everyday life in the face of violence, looting and expulsion.

With: Regina Fritz, Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Vienna, and Philipp Rohrbach, Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies (VWI).

Episodes (in German): -1- / -2- / -3- / -4- / -5-

European Holocaust Research Infrastructure becomes 30th EU-Recognised Research Consortium: A major milestone in Holocaust studies

On 26 January 2025 – on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau – EHRI was launched as an ERIC. This European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) will form a solid foundation for future Holocaust research and documentation in Europe and beyond. The inauguration ceremony took place in the POLIN Museum in Warsaw and was attended by representatives of the 10 founding members, long-term EHRI project members, members of the national nodes and the wider EHRI-community. In their speeches the official representatives highlighted the importance of Holocaust research and documentation in the fight against Holocaust distortion, in the education of empathic young adults, in combatting antisemitism and other forms of racism and in protecting the facts. With the rise of right-wing nationalism, populism and illiberal politics in many European countries, the protection of academic freedom will be at the core of what EHRI-ERIC stands for. Austria is one of the founding members – the VWI as coordinating institution of EHRI-AT is looking forward to work with its Austrian partners in order to secure transnational research and documentation.

Photo: Maciek Jazwiecki

Jewish Claims Conference "Cross Country Holocaust Survey" out now!

On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the commemoration of the Holocaust, the Claims Conference has published the results of its “Cross Country Holocaust Survey”. Adults from eight countries - seven European countries (including Austria) and the USA - were asked about their knowledge of and attitudes towards the Holocaust. The results are distressing: Over half of the participants believe that the Holocaust could happen again, a shockingly high percentage blatantly underestimate the number of victims and cannot name any of the about 40,000 camps and ghettos in which Jews were murdered. However, this ignorance goes hand in hand with an increased awareness of the need to educate people about the Holocaust: The overwhelming majority of respondents agree on this. The VWI was involved in the preparation of the survey.

https://www.claimscon.org/study/

Photo: "Selection on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1944", © Wiki Commons