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Abstract
The Werner von Boltenstern Shanghai Photograph and Negative Collection, housed in Loyola Marymount University's William H. Hannon Library, is a series of photographs of 1930s-1940s Shanghai taken by Werner von Boltenstern. The images capture a time and place at a crossroads of culture and history. World War II and the Second Sino-Japanese War were raging and the city, a trade center populated by numerous peoples, including Chinese citizens, British, French, and American nationals, Sephardic and Russian Jews, and the occupying Japanese military, was receiving an influx of European Jews fleeing Nazi Europe. The rediscovery of this collection (it sat unused for many years) led to its digitization, a successful crowdsourcing effort to gather more metadata, and the incorporation of the collection into an LMU Literature of the Holocaust class digital project. Through these endeavors, the library has increased its understanding of the collection's historical value, in particular as it relates to Holocaust studies and Jewish studies more broadly.
Keywords: Holocaust, Shanghai Jewish Refugees, Photography, China, Digitization, Digital Humanities
A Discovery
Archive and special collections vaults are full of "undiscovered" treasures: objects that have yet to be processed or even once processed, have since seen little light of day. One such treasure is the Werner von Boltenstern Shanghai Photograph and Negative Collection (Shanghai Collection, see at digitalcollections.lmu.edu). Once part of a larger collection, the photographic materials had been removed, rehoused and intriguingly relabeled "Shanghai Jewish Community." That label piqued my curiosity and sparked a desire to research the collection and its subject matter. What began as a personal interest led to the collection's digitization, a crowdsourcing effort to gather more metadata, and the incorporation of the collection into several curricula at Loyola Marymount University (LMU).
The History
Werner von Boltenstern (1904-1974) gave the Shanghai Collection, a series of photographic negatives and prints, to LMU when he donated his enormous postcard collection to the university in the late 1960s.1 The photographic materials had been filed neatly among the postcards and once found, were removed and rehoused in acid-free envelopes, stored in acid-free boxes, and labeled "Shanghai Jewish Community." The photographs, taken during von Boltenstern's nine-year long travels across the globe capture 1937-1949 Shanghai, a booming trade center and home to a diverse population. In addition...