Trove Of Jewish Documents Believed Destroyed During Holocaust To Go On Display In NYC

FLATIRON, NY — Thousands of Jewish documents that scholars previously believed were destroyed during the Holocaust have been discovered, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research announced on Tuesday.

The institute, located in Flatiron, said this week that it would display some of the newly discovered works. The documents had been hidden during the Holocaust to save them from destruction by the Nazis before they were recovered recently. YIVO called the discovery a "watershed moment" for understanding Jewish culture and history, in addition to the extreme lengths taken by Jews to preserve significant texts.

"With the rise of nationalist extremism in the world today, this discovery takes on new relevance and urgency," YIVO's CEO Jonathan Brent said in a statement. "It reminds us of the perpetual attempt at wiping out a people by erasing their memory from history. But it also reminds us that preserving culture is the work of a community, in this case of Jews and non-Jews working together to save the spirit and memory of a people."

Of the thousands of newly discovered pages, ten documents will be on display at the institute, located at 15 W 16th St., through January 2018. Visitors will be able to view a previously unpublished poem by Avrom Sutzkever, one of the most significant Jewish poets of his generation. A collection of ten poems that Sutzkever wrote in the Vilna ghetto in 1943 will be on display.

Image credit: Thos Robinson / Stringer / Getty Images Entertainment for YIVO Institute. Photo caption: YIVO unveils lost Jewish documents thought to have been destroyed during the Holocaust on October 24, 2017 in New York City.