Special Collections: Baltic

The Baltic Biographical Archive (BaBA) lists biographical data on more than 80,000 individuals. It is a cumulation of 150 biographical works published between 1600 and 1940. It contains information on nationals of Baltic States as well as persons who worked there and were of some influence in the region. The selection of biographical sources puts special emphasis on the specific role of German-Baltic individuals. Included are Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and other nationals who shaped the historic course of the Baltic region. Also, the biographies of more than a million Baltic people living in exile all over the world are included in the BaBA wherever possible.

Created by U.S. Presidential directive during World War II and at first placed under the Federal Communications Commission in 1941, the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) was later transferred to the War Department, and then to the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947.

The original mission of FBIS was to monitor, record, transcribe and translate intercepted radio broadcasts from foreign governments, official news services, and clandestine broadcasts from occupied territories. These translations, or transcriptions in the case of English language materials, make up the Daily Reports.

The FBIS Daily Reports collection is divided into two chronological segments: 1941-1974 and 1974-1996. FBIS Daily Reports, 1941-1974, consists of a single Daily Report publication. FBIS Daily Reports, 1974-1996, is comprised of eight separate regional Daily Reports, of which Part 6 pertains to Eastern Europe (EEU), and Part 7 to the Soviet Union and Central Eurasia (SOV). Regional coverage for eastern Europe and the Soviet Union is also included for the years 1968 to 1974.

The reports includes news, interviews, speeches, editorial commentary, and other materials.

Originally known as the Students’ Union, the Students’ Administrative Council was established in 1901 to oversee student services and to enhance the student experience at the University of Toronto.

Among the correspondence and subject files relating to the Students' Administrative Council, are minutes of the Latvian Students' Centre Association Abroad from around 1952 to 1955.

A digitized, fully searchable and hyperlinked repository of visual testimonies by almost 52,000 survivors of genocidal wars. The vast majority of the testimonies in the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive are from Jewish survivors of the Holocaust (1939-1945), as well as other Holocaust witnesses, rescuers, and aid providers.

Among the main subjects discussed in the interviews are geographical locations, prominent figures, names of family members and other people, prewar Jewish life, religious practice, cultural life, acts of persecution and prejudice, camps and ghettos, deportations, massacres, means of adaptation or survival, resistance, rescue and aid efforts, and postwar emigration and immigration.

The Wrong family has many connections to the University of Toronto. George Wrong, son of Margaret and Edward Blake, was professor of history at the University of Toronto and head of the department from 1894 until his retirement in 1927. His son Hume served as lecturer in and assistant professor of history at the University, and his other son Harold and nephew Gerald Blake were graduates of the University.

The collection contains records of three generations of the Blake and Wrong families. It includes papers of Margaret Christian Wrong, a leader in the student Christian movement and missionary educator in Africa. Her files include letters and reports she wrote while with the World Students’ Christian Federation from 1921 until 1926. Her duties with this organization took her to Eastern Europe, where she helped organize student relief in Poland, Austria and the Baltic countries, and established a student YMCA, first in Riga, Latvia, and then in Austria. The material provides details on the issues she faced and the conditions under which she worked.