The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), in collaboration with Project MUSE, a division of Johns Hopkins University Press, has unveiled a groundbreaking interactive map as part of its Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 (ECG) series. This innovative digital tool enhances the accessibility and engagement of the museum’s comprehensive research on Nazi persecutory sites, offering users an unprecedented way to explore the vast network of camps, ghettos, and other detention facilities operated by Nazi Germany and its allies.
The interactive map, now available alongside the fully searchable, open-access digital editions of the first four volumes of the ECG on the Project MUSE platform, visualizes the staggering scale of the Nazi persecution system, which spanned from Norway to North Africa and from France to the Soviet Union. The map allows users to explore thousands of documented sites, including well-known concentration camps like Auschwitz and Dachau, as well as lesser-known ghettos and forced labor camps that devastated local communities. Each site is accompanied by detailed narratives, photographs, charts, and source citations drawn from over 25 years of meticulous research by more than 700 scholars worldwide.“This interactive map is a game-changer for Holocaust education and research,” said Dr. Alexandra Lohse, General Editor of the ECG and Applied Research Scholar at the USHMM’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. “It not only illustrates the geographic scope of Nazi persecution but also connects users directly to the stories of the millions impacted by these sites, making the history more tangible and accessible.”
The ECG series, which began in 1999, has documented over 42,000 sites, far exceeding initial estimates of a few thousand. The interactive map enhances the user experience by allowing dynamic navigation of these sites, with filters to explore by volume, camp type, or region. This digital initiative, supported in part by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future,” and the German Federal Ministry of Finance, ensures that the ECG’s scholarship is freely available to scholars, educators, students, survivors, their descendants, and the general public.
“By breaking free from static PDFs and print formats, this interactive tool brings the history of the Holocaust into the digital age,” said Wendy Queen, Director of Project MUSE. “The map, combined with the searchable text, empowers users to engage with this vital research in new and meaningful ways, ensuring the memory of the Holocaust remains relevant and accessible.
”The first four volumes of the ECG, covering early camps, concentration camps, ghettos in Eastern Europe, and sites under Nazi-allied regimes, are now available on Project MUSE, with the remaining three volumes to be added as they are completed. A forthcoming database in Volume VII will include data on an estimated 38,000 additional forced labor camps, further expanding the scope of this unparalleled resource.
The interactive map and digital ECG are accessible at https://muse.jhu.edu/ushmm/map
