Rutgers Oral History Archives

10/01/2026

Our September 2026 newsletter is out! The new semester is filled with events and news :)

Jochen Hellbeck is Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University, specializing in modern Russia, the Soviet Union, and the history of World War II. The recipient of fellowships from the New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, the John Simon....

10/01/2026

We invite everyone to Distinguished Professor Jochen Hellbeck's public lecture, "The Holocaust, N**i Germany, and the War on Bolshevism: Reexamining the Causes of World War Two," on October 7 on New Brunswick campus!

Jochen Hellbeck’s talk reexamines the causes and the course of the Second World War by highlighting N**i anticommunism as a central driver of the war. Existing scholarship often treats hatred of Communism and Marxism as a secondary factor in the rise of the N**is, overshadowed by racial antisemitism. Hellbeck does not downplay antisemitism; rather, he shows that the N**i hatreds of Jews and Communists were intertwined. It was for this reason that the N**i mass killing of Jews started on the occupied territories of the USSR and spread from there. Hellbeck’s talk engages in equal measure with the Soviet response to the N**i invasion. He shows how well Soviet citizens were informed about German mass killings, and how integral feelings of outrage and hatred were to the Soviet war effort and, eventually, victory over N**i Germany.

09/24/2026

Please join us for a special on-campus evening celebrating the life, art and enduring humanism of Dr. Bhupen Hazarika—the beloved singer, songwriter, filmmaker, poet and public intellectual whose work continues to connect people across Assam, Bengal, India and the world.

On Friday, September 25, from 7 to 9 p.m., the Rutgers Oral History Archives and the Assam Digital Living Museum will present a free public screening of Bhupen Da Uncut at Van Dyck Hall in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

https://oralhistory.rutgers.edu/newsandevents/event-details/2915-screening-of-bhupen-da-uncut-and-conversation

04/25/2026

The Rutgers Giving Day has been extended to Saturday, April 25, 2026—today! Please consider making the Rutgers Oral History Archives your philanthropic priority: https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/oral-history-archives/8689.html Your gift provides the essential tools to keep our stories alive.

Through the generosity and hard work of the Rutgers community and dedicated New Jersey citizens that make up the Rutgers Living History Society, we have been able to publish 1,300+ interviews amounting to 50,000+ pages online!

Now, here is the thing—we want to be able to onboard more student staff and retain our undergraduate and graduate interns beyond their practicum semester. Why? We have 1,200 more interviews not yet available to the public. To get them online, we need more undergraduate interns to review the transcripts! We also want to make it easier for you to find the published interviews. We have many initiatives grouping interviews by interviewee hometowns, fields of study, industries, and more. For these metadata to go live, we need graduate interns to categorize and curate the interviews! Finally, we also want to equip our graduate students and community partners with interview field kits so that they can go out and conduct more interviews.

Our goal this Rutgers Giving Day is $3,000, and we are a little over 50% of the goal with 8 hours remaining. We can meet the goal together! We deeply appreciate the generosity of those who have already donated to the Rutgers Oral History Archies Gift Fund.

Rutgers University Foundation

04/25/2026

Shaun and Jeongeun were joined by Spring 2026 public history interns extraordinaire Ilca Duarte, Peyton Martress, and George Canellis (not pictured) on Rutgers Day! It was rainy and cold, but the College Ave Gym was full of Rutgers energy 🙂 Rutgers Day

04/09/2026

It is with deep sadness that we share that Bart Klion RC'48, the last member of the Rutgers Oral History Archives' founding generation, passed away early Tuesday morning. Bart often remarked that his service was motivated by a desire to honor his late brother, Stanley '42. Yet it was Bart's own dedication, leadership, and steady guidance that left an indelible mark on our organization. May his example guide us in our endeavor to remember.