An archive is a collection of records stored in a given location of either an individual or group where they are preserved and can be accessed. Access to such archival documents can be limited as they are traditionally only available in their original form in a single location. In order to aid this dilemma of accessibility many archives have been made available online in a period that Rick Prelinger describes as the “archival hour” (114). Preligner explains that foregrounding archives in the mass media has “brought wealth and fame, visibility and allure” (114) and through this process the longevity of archival institutions are questioned due to deep archival research being hindered as a result of so much archival access online. Those archives which have not been published online, in many cases due to copy right issues, may be drowned in the sea of Web 2.0 information. Many are not online due to the fact that their access “is overwhelmingly crippled by an overzealous application of the precautionary principle” (Prelinger, 115) and therefore the lack of online accessibility may lead researchers, who now include more than scholars, to dismiss “established archives for research and production” (Prelinger 116).
Through the archive Letters to Sala, made available online by The New York Public Library’s Online Exhibition, I hope to demonstrate the necessity for archives to become more accessible to the public in order to ensure that histories are preserved and remembered for generations to come and not surpassed or paralyzed by other online information.
Fifty years after Sala Garncarz Kirschner‘s traumatic Holocaust experience she gave her daughter Ann a box she had hidden of over 350 letters from her family and friends during her five year ordeal in seven Nazi concentration camps. These letters were in Polish, German and Yiddish and Sala had preserved and stored all of them. Ann then donated Sala’s primary collection to the New York Library’s Dorot Jewish Division and in 2006 an exhibition was established for Sala’s collection, which then evolved into a book. This made the access to these first hand accounts much wider, and to further this accessibility the exhibition was then made into an online archive through which viewers can read about Sala’s experience in the multiple camps she endured as well as the Nazi postal system, some history on the war and the slave camps. Images of the letters are displayed and importantly they are translated in order to accommodate many more people allowing them to comprehend the struggles and horrendous experience of the Nazi Concentration camps. Sala’s letters are some of the few firsthand accounts of the camps and consequently the increased accessibility is essential. The translation of the letters is crucial as the writing may be hard for some to comprehend especially as some of the letters are on crumpled, brown, tearing paper. The increased availability to such documents does in fact allow the originals to be preserved and whilst this may be moving away from traditional archival study with original documents it will allow more people to learn, share and research Sala’s collection of personal events. The experiences of Sala, some of which are explained in the letters, are an indication of what occurred in the dire concentration camps and therefore could be perceived as one of the most accurate accounts of what happened to some of the 5-6 million jews who died during the Holocaust.
Many of Sala’s letters are to Ala Gertner who was given some privileges due to being bilingual with a good education. Ala was one of the few who tried to uprise against the Sonderkommando (the workers who operated the gas chambers) in Auschwitz and as a result was publicly hanged after being tortured. Sala’s letters provide the majority of information that we now know about Ala who was a key figure in the attempted uprising within the camps and this emphasizes the essential role of making them available for everyone to learn from as without this accommodation of translation and access online many individuals would not be able to use such information for research.
It is possible that making archives available online does threaten deep archival research. But I question what should take priority; archives being more accessible to the public or deep archival research being preserved and made only available to researchers who can in some cases travel across the world to look at the single copy of such documents. The “archival hour” (Prelinger 114) may not last for ever therefore it is important that we preserve original archives but that during this hour of popularity the desire to do archival research is embraced.
Works cited
Prelinger, Rick. “Archives and Access in the 21st Century”. Cinema Journal 46.3 (2007): 114–118. University of Texas Press. Web. January 21 2015.
