The Strashun Library of Vilna
Rescued from the Ashes

Recreating the Strashun Library

The Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections Project

In 2015, YIVO launched what is now called the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project to preserve, digitize, and virtually reunite YIVO’s prewar library and archival collections located in New York City and Vilnius, Lithuania, through a dedicated web portal. A key component of this project is the digital reconstruction of the Strashun Library.

The surviving books of the Strashun Library -- those that were rescued right after World War II and brought to New York as well as those that remained hidden in Lithuania for forty years -- are now being cataloged, preserved, and digitized, and are available as color, full-text images on the project website along with other books and rare documents.

The full project is expected to be completed in 2022 and is a partnership between  YIVO, the Lithuanian Central State Archives, the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, and the Wroblewski Library of Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.

Visit the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project website.

The Strashun Library Digitization Project is named in gratitude for the generous support of the William P  Goldman & Brothers Foundation in memory of Sidney and Evelyn Kraines and Jacob Behrman.