Heritage Lottery Fund announces £475,000 grant to The Wiener Library

The Wiener Library is to open up its collections and increase public engagement, thanks in part to a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.  The confirmed grant of £475,000 to the Wiener Library, Britain’s largest archive on the Holocaust and Nazi era, is to expand the Library’s public engagement and will enable the Library to appoint 3 new members of staff focusing on learning, engagement and outreach, as well as creating a new exhibition area in the Library’s new building at 29 Russell Square in the heart of academic London.  More public programming, a temporary exhibition programme, volunteer opportunities and an improved website will be launched later in the year, following the building’s opening in September 2011.

These initiatives will place the Library and its collections at the heart of Holocaust education in the UK.  The Library will encourage people from all communities to engage with the history of the Holocaust and with the many challenges it poses in the 21st century.

Sue Bowers, Head of the Heritage Lottery Fund for London, said: “The Wiener Library is one of the key memory-keepers for periods in history such as the Holocaust. We look forward to the collections being more widely available later this year to help this most important of legacies to be learnt from by future generations”.

For more information on the Library and its work, please visit www.wienerlibrary.co.uk