A collection of the works written by the most outstanding authors writing in Yiddish before WW2 which came from the National Library, available as the Digital National Library “Polona.”

With more than 230 positions, the digital collection of works written in Yiddish was launched in 2007 as the first non-Polish collection in CBN Polona. The collection is available at www.polona.pl under the name “Yiddish Literature.” It is addressed at the lovers of Yiddish culture around the world.

Visiting the website, the reader has an opportunity to familiarize with books published at the end of the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th century. The collection presents texts that are part of the ample collection of literature written in this language owned by the National Library. In addition, there is also an access to books and journals from the interwar period, hence from the period during which the biggest Jewish diaspora in Europe was located in Poland.

The collection features nearly hundred most important Yiddish authors: poets, prose writers, drama authors. They include pioneers of literature in this language, such as Salomon Ettinger, Mendele Mojcher Sforim and other authors who followed them, including Abraham Goldfaden, I.L. Perec or Sholem Aleichem and others. Because of the copy rights restrictions, the webpage could not feature the works written by authors such as I. B. Singer.

Saved from the conflagration of WW2, the part of the heritage of Polish Jews has been buried among the Library’s collections for years. With the help of the joint undertaking, the National Library and the Shalom Foundation gave it a chance to be brought back to the interested citizens. Now, it may become a valuable source of original texts in Yiddish for students, PhD students and all people who learn Yiddish language.