On Tuesday, May 12, 2026, from 6:30–8:00 p.m. EDT, the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University will host an online presentation introducing the Blavatnik Archive’s open-access digital collections on Soviet history, World War II, 20th-century Jewish culture, and the Holocaust. The program will highlight primary source materials—including postcards, photographs, posters, illustrations, and letters—and explore how educators and scholars can use the Archive’s digital tools for research, teaching, and classroom engagement. The event will feature Julie Reines Chervinsky, Director of the Blavatnik Archive, and Brandon Schechter, Historian at the Blavatnik Archive.
Join us on December 7, 2025 at The Academy Mansion in New York City for the final event of the Blavatnik Archive’s 20th Anniversary Celebration, marking two decades of preserving the everyday artifacts that illuminate overlooked histories. The program begins at 2:00 PM with Refuseniks and Activists: Actions and Consequences, a roundtable featuring Gennady Estraikh, Samuel Finkelman, Shaul Kelner, and Alexandra Zborovsky on the global movement for Soviet Jewish “Refuseniks,” followed at 3:30 PM by Zvi Gitelman’s reflection, How Do We Know What “Really” Happened?, exploring how archives help disentangle fact from distortion. The afternoon concludes with a 4:00 PM anniversary reception with drinks and refreshments.
The Last Musician of Auschwitz, executive produced by Emily Blavatnik and Danny Cohen, is a feature-length documentary that tells the story of Jewish cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and other musicians at the Auschwitz concentration camp who used music as a form of resistance and testimony. The film features first-person accounts from Holocaust survivors and includes new interpretations of musical works written by victims, highlighting themes of loss, cultural memory, and the resilience of the human spirit amidst the horrors of the camp. Musicians from the Phoenix Chamber Ensemble of the Blavatnik Chamber Music Series will perform 45 minutes of music from the film, and other pieces played by prisoners at Auschwitz, before the screening. The special event will take place at the Center for Jewish History in New York on Thursday, October 30.
Join Phoenix Chamber Ensemble pianists Vassa Shevel and Inessa Zaretsky and guest artists Anna Elashvili (violin) and Aaron Wolff (cello) for an evening of Mozart and Schubert. Founded in 2005 by pianists Vassa Shevel and Inessa Zaretsky, and celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, the Phoenix Chamber Ensemble has become a vital part of the New York classical community, presenting more than 70 public concerts at the Center for Jewish History. Made possible by the Stravinsky Institute Foundation through the generous support of the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
On January 27th, the Blavatnik Archive’s exhibition, Jewish Fighters in the Red Army: 1941-1945, will open to the public in the Center for Jewish History. Situated in the Center’s Great Hall, the exhibition will run until December 31, 2025. The exhibit is comprised of striking war-time portraits of Jewish veterans who fought in the Soviet army in World War II, and a rare selection from soldiers’ personal diaries. Recognizing that the stories of Jewish soldiers were mostly left out of the more familiar narratives about the Jewish experience of the war and the Holocaust, the Blavatnik Archive began to record and share their testimonies.
At 99, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch is the last surviving member of the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz — her son tells her extraordinary story to the Financial Times. On January 27, the BBC will mark Holocaust Memorial Day and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau with a wide range of programming, including the documentary, “The Last Musician of Auschwitz,” executive produced by Foundation Co-Chair Emily Blavatnik and Access Entertainment President Danny Cohen.
On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the Blavatnik Archive is opening an exhibit at Altneu Synagogue in New York City on Thursday, January 16, 2025. The Archive’s resident historian, Brandon Schechter, will present an introduction to the exhibit, which is comprised of a collection of photographs made after the liberation of the camp, and discuss the intent of their creators.
For the philanthropic family, which fled the USSR in 1978-1979, the topic is a personal matter, but Alex Blavatnik tells eJP that he hopes the story resonates further. The Blavatnik Family Foundation, joined by the Arcadia Fund and the David Berg Foundation, is working to change that, funding a new digital archive — Refuseniks & Activists — that is dedicated to the Soviet Jewry movement and the Refuseniks, those Soviet Jews whose applications for exit visas were refused and who were then forced into horrid conditions for the sins of being Jewish and Zionist.
The project was awarded the 2024 Digital Projects for the Public grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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The Blavatnik Archive is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to preserving and disseminating materials that contribute to the study of 20th-century Jewish and world history, with a special emphasis on World War I, World War II, and Soviet Russia.
