Citation Resources
The most often used citation style for History is:
Chicago Manual of Style Online
Organize your sources using Zotero.
What are primary sources?
Primary sources are documents or artifacts created by eyewitnesses or participants present at an event. Some examples of primary sources include diaries, letters, newspaper articles, photographs, advertisements, editorials, political cartoons, government documents, legislation, maps, oral histories, interviews, novels, plays, music, and many other things. These items can be found in many of the library's databases and on websites from museums, archives, libraries, and government agencies.
Why should I use primary sources?
- Get first-person accounts from eyewitnesses and participants
- Supports original historical research
- Gives voice to individuals not always included in the historical record
Books written by scholars are a good source of information for many topics. Memoirs, autobiographies, diaries, and similar items give first-person accounts of events and experiences.
Search Belk Library's online system or use the following resources to find primary source books, government documents, reports, and other items.
Be sure to speak with a librarian if you don't find what you need. They will be able to suggest other sources of information to help with your research needs.
Internet Links to Primary Source Books:
Find Books at Elon University:
The Holocaust Film Sourcebook, v. 1 Fiction by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780275983277Publication Date: 2004
The Holocaust Film Sourcebook, v. 2 Documentary & Propaganda by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780275978501Publication Date: 2004-06-30
The Jew in the Modern World by Call Number: 909.04924 M522jeISBN: 9780195389067Publication Date: 2010
Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter by Call Number: 940.534384 R742meISBN: 0300057970Publication Date: 1994
Memories and reflections of the dispossessed : a collection of memoirs for the 60th anniversary of the Czechoslovak-Hungarian population exchangeCall Number: 943.9052 M519moPublication Date: 2010
The Oryx Holocaust Sourcebook by Call Number: 940.531803 F394orISBN: 1573562955Publication Date: 2002
Resistance and Conformity in the Third Reich by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780415121330Publication Date: 1997
Theatrical Performance during the Holocaust by Call Number: 792.089924 T34roISBN: 9780801861673Publication Date: 1999
The Weimar Republic Sourcebook by Call Number: 943.085 W43kaISBN: 9780520067752Publication Date: 1995
The following list of books are not owned by Elon University. They are available from other libraries and may be requested on interlibrary loan (ILL). The list of recommended sources from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum identifies additional sources for your research.
List of Sources from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum:
USHMM Bibliography and Videography
List of Sources from Yad Vashem:
The Stab-In-the-Back Myth and the Fall of the Weimar Republic by ISBN: 9781474227803Publication Date: 2016
Use these resources to find historical newspaper articles online.
Why You Should Use Them:
- Newspaper articles may be considered a primary source if written at the time an event occurred
- May include eyewitness or firsthand accounts of events
- Frequently include other primary source objects like photographs, editorials, political cartoons, letters to the editor, advertisements, etc.
Find Historical Newspaper Articles:
- History Unfolded: US Newspapers and the HolocaustThe US Holocaust Memorial Museum has provided links to collections of US newspapers published between 1933 and 1945. Limit to "open online" and English to easily access these newspapers online.
- Historic German Newspapers and Journals Online - EuroDocsPart of the EuroDocs site created by Richard Hacken, a librarian at Brigham Young University, to provide access to open, freely available European primary historical documents. Newspapers and journals listed here are primarily in German.
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index This link opens in a new windowAccess to the archives of The New York Times (1851-2019)
- ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post This link opens in a new windowAccess to the archives of The Washington Post (1877-2007)
- The Times Digital Archive (London) This link opens in a new windowThe Times Digital Archive is an online, full-text facsimile of more than 200 years of the Times, one of the most highly regarded resources for eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century news coverage, with every page of every issue from 1785 to 2012. (Primary Source)
- Newspaper Archive This link opens in a new windowHistorical newspapers from across the United States and beyond. Obituaries. Photos. Access 575+ million pages. Articles. From the 1700's to 2000's. Great for history and genealogy research.
- America's Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new windowAmerican newspapers published across three centuries. Includes thousands of titles from all 50 states. Historic newspapers 1690- recent past.
The following is a selective list of library databases that contain primary source content. Many of these databases feature a specific type of content or focus on a particular time period or subject.
Be sure to speak with a librarian if you don't find what you need. They will be able to suggest other sources of information to help your research needs.
Selected Primary Source Databases:
- Correspondence from German Concentration Camps and PrisonsCollection consists of items originating from prisoners held in German concentration camps, internment and transit camps, Gestapo prisons, and POW camps, during and just prior to World War II. Most of the collection consists of letters written or received by prisoners, but also includes receipts for parcels, money orders and personal effects; paper currency; and realia, including Star of David badges that Jews were forced to wear.
- Holocaust and the Concentration Camp Trials: Prosecution of Nazi War CrimesThis collection provides unique documents on the investigation and prosecution of war crimes committed by Nazi concentration camp commandants and camp personnel. Documents include: correspondence; trial records and transcripts; investigatory material, such as interrogation reports and trial exhibits; clemency petitions and reviews; photographs of atrocities; newspaper clippings; and pamphlets
- Jewish Underground Resistance: The David Diamant CollectionDavid Diamant is the pseudonym of David Erlich, a Jewish communist and committed member of the underground resistance during World War II. This collection consists of original documents collected by Diamant over a period of approximately 30 years dealing primarily with the Jewish segment of the French underground resistance; many of the documents originate with communist groups, and some deal with Polish groups. Most of the documents are in French, while some are in Yiddish.
- Post-War Europe: Refugees, Exile and Resettlement, 1945-1950This online archive delivers essential primary sources for the study and understanding of the challenges facing the European peoples in the aftermath of World War II. It covers the politics and administration of the post war refugee crisis in Europe well as the day-to-day survival of the refugees themselves
Use internet resources as a starting point to find relevant content online from libraries, museums, archives, government agencies, and organizations.
Why You Should Use Them:
- Use to locate reports, statistics, data, newspapers, and primary source content
- Use content produced by government agencies, reputable organizations, museums, archives, and libraries
- Resources may link to additional websites and resources
Be sure to speak with a librarian if you don't find what you need. They will be able to suggest other sources of information to help your research needs.
Find Primary and Internet Resources:
- American Jewish Committee ArchivesDigitized content including audio, film, timelines, and more from the American Jewish Committee Archives in New York
- Avalon Project -- The Nuremberg TrialsDigitized collections of documents from The International Military Tribunal for Germany
- Calvin College: Nazi Propaganda, 1933-1945The German Propaganda Archive "is a growing collection of English translations of propaganda material from Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic" collected and translated by Dr. Randall Bytwerk, Professor Emeritus at Calvin College.
- German History in Documents and Images"German History in Documents and Images is a comprehensive collection of original historical materials documenting German history from the beginning of the early modern period to the present."
- German History in Documents and Images (Revised)New edition of the GHDI website that includes primary sources, audiovisual materials, maps, and more. As of February 2023, two chapters have been completed with more revised chapters to be added over the next months.
- Holocaust and Genocide Studies Center CollectionsDigital collection from the University of South Florida
- Jewish Virtual LibraryThe Jewish Virtual Library (JVL) is a comprehensive online encyclopedia of Jewish history, politics and culture. This URL links directly to entries on the Holocaust.
- Nuremberg Trials ProjectThe Harvard Law School Library is in the process of digitizing one million pages of documents relating to the Nuremberg Trials. Also digitized are over 200 photographs. Similar projects are underway at Yale and Cornell.
- Simon Wiesenthal Center Digital ArchivesThe Simon Wiesenthal Center is dedicated to confronting anti-Semitism and protecting human rights. The Center's digital archives contains images as well as digitized documents pertaining to the Holocaust.
- UC Berkeley: German Poster and Broadside Collection"Chiefly Nazi propaganda material, including handbills, broadsides, and illustrated broadsides as well as posters. Many items are specifically anti-British or anti-American. A few items promoting other political parties during earlier German elections of the 1930s are present."
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum -- Collections SearchPrimary search method for searching and discovering materials in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum DiariesLists published diaries of Holocaust victims and survivors
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum PhotographsDigitized photographs from the USHMM's collection
- Voices of the Holocaust"The mission of Voices of the Holocaust project is to provide a permanent digital archive of digitized, restored, transcribed, and translated interviews with Holocaust survivors conducted by Dr. David P. Boder in 1946, so that they can be experienced by a global audience of students, researchers, historians, and the general public." Illinois Institute of Technology
Documentaries, videos, and photographs are great resources for research in the social sciences. They are available through several online streaming platforms in the library's database collection.
Why You Should Use Them:
- They preserve important events or moments in time
- They educate us and raise awareness
- Focus is on real-life events and people
Find Videos & Images:
- Academic Video Online (AVON) This link opens in a new windowOver 68,000 titles spanning a wide range of subjects: anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more. AVON includes a variety of video material with curricular relevance: documentaries, interviews, feature films, performances, news programs and newsreels, demonstrations, and raw footage.
- Films on Demand Video Collection This link opens in a new windowThousands of high quality videos on business & economics, health & medicine, humanities & social sciences, and science & mathematics, as well as travel and fitness programming, home and how-to videos, indie films, and popular music performances. Includes Oscar, Emmy and Peabody award winning documentaries, interviews, instructional and vocational training videos, historical speeches and newsreels.
- Artstor This link opens in a new windowMore than 2.5 million images related to art, art history, architecture, painting, photography, and visual and material culture.
“Witnesses and Education” is a series of testimony films in which survivors recount their life stories at the locations in which the events transpired. The survivors are accompanied on this journey by trained professionals from the International School for Holocaust Studies, and thus the orientation of the questions is pedagogical in nature, alongside outlines of the broader historical events that came to bear on the survivor’s story. The series, select films of which are available in up to 15 languages, has proven a great success, and has been viewed by tens of thousands of educators, students, and public officials around the world.
The "Witnesses and Education" project was produced jointly by the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem and the Center for Multimedia Assisted Instruction at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, with the generous support of the Claims Conference and the Adelson Family Foundation.
Text copied from Yad Vashem Survivors Testimony Film Series website, 4/11/2022
Additional Recommended Films:
- "Divided We Fall"Divided We Fall. Directed by Hrebejk, Jan. Sony Pictures Classics, 2001.
- "Ida"Ida. Directed by Pawlikowski, Pawel. Music Box Films, 2014.
- "Son of Saul"Son of Saul. Directed by László Nemes. Sony Pictures Classics, 2015.