The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1946)

The Manhattan Engineer District’s own report on what the bombs did to two cities and their people.

In August 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Afterward, investigators from the Manhattan Project surveyed both cities and wrote this report on the destruction, the casualties and the effects of radiation.

It is sober, factual and difficult to read. It is also an essential document for anyone who wants to understand the human cost of the weapon Oppenheimer and his colleagues built, and why so many of them spent the rest of their lives working to control it.

Part of the Boston Made Reader’s special collection Courage, Conscience & Service. Every book and document here is free to read.

The Smyth Report — Atomic Energy for Military Purposes (1945)

The official history of the Manhattan Project, released to the public just days after the war ended.

Written by the Princeton physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth at the government’s request, the report explained to the public, for the first time, how the United States had developed the atomic bomb and who had done the work.

It became a bestseller in 1945 and remains the standard official account of the project’s organization, from university laboratories to the secret cities of Oak Ridge, Hanford and Los Alamos, where J. Robert Oppenheimer directed the scientists.

Part of the Boston Made Reader’s special collection Courage, Conscience & Service. Every book and document here is free to read.

The Einstein–Szilard Letter to President Roosevelt (1939)

The two-page letter that warned President Roosevelt a new kind of weapon might be possible, and set the Manhattan Project in motion.

In August 1939, weeks before war began in Europe, the physicist Leó Szilárd drafted a letter and asked Albert Einstein to sign it. It warned that uranium might be used to build extremely powerful bombs and that Germany might already be working on the problem.

The letter led to the first U.S. government research on atomic energy, which grew into the Manhattan Project. Einstein later said signing it was one of the great regrets of his life.

Part of the Boston Made Reader’s special collection Courage, Conscience & Service. Every book and document here is free to read.

The Nuremberg Trials Project — Harvard Law School

A free digital archive of documents and transcripts from the Nuremberg trials, including the later trials of doctors, judges and industrialists.

After the main tribunal, the United States held twelve more trials at Nuremberg, including cases against the Nazi doctors who carried out human experiments, the judges who applied Nazi law, and the business leaders who used slave labor.

Harvard Law School Library has digitized its collection of these records and made it free to search and read. The Doctors’ Trial led directly to the Nuremberg Code, the foundation of modern medical ethics.

Part of the Boston Made Reader’s special collection Courage, Conscience & Service. Every book and document here is free to read.

Elie Wiesel — Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech (1986)

“Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” A Holocaust survivor’s appeal to never stay silent.

Elie Wiesel was deported to Auschwitz as a teenager and survived the camps. He spent the rest of his life bearing witness, most famously in his memoir Night.

When he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, he spoke about memory, about the boy he had been, and about the obligation of everyone who sees injustice to speak up. The Nobel Foundation publishes the full speech free to read, along with a recording.

Part of the Boston Made Reader’s special collection Courage, Conscience & Service. Every book and document here is free to read.

The Harrison Report (1945)

The report that told President Truman how Holocaust survivors were still living months after liberation, and changed American policy.

In the summer of 1945, President Truman sent Earl G. Harrison to inspect the camps in Europe where surviving Jews and other displaced persons were being held. Harrison found many survivors still behind barbed wire, poorly fed and without hope of leaving.

His blunt report led Truman to order changes in how the U.S. Army treated survivors, including separate camps and better conditions. It is a short, powerful document about what happens after a catastrophe, and about the duty to act.

Part of the Boston Made Reader’s special collection Courage, Conscience & Service. Every book and document here is free to read.

Trial of the Major War Criminals — the “Blue Series” (1947–1949)

The complete official record of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg: testimony, evidence and judgment.

The Nuremberg tribunal sat from November 1945 to October 1946. It established the principle that following orders is no defense for crimes against humanity, a principle that still shapes international law.

The “Blue Series” is the word-for-word record of the trial and the documents entered into evidence. Volume 1 contains the charges and the tribunal’s judgment and is the best place to start.

Part of the Boston Made Reader’s special collection Courage, Conscience & Service. Every book and document here is free to read.

Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression — the “Red Series” (1946)

The evidence the American prosecutors gathered for the Nuremberg trial: captured Nazi documents, translated and published by the U.S. government.

After the war, the Allies put the surviving leaders of Nazi Germany on trial at Nuremberg. The Office of the U.S. Chief of Counsel collected thousands of the regime’s own documents and published them in English in a set known for its red bindings.

Because the evidence came largely from the Nazis’ own files, these volumes are a permanent answer to anyone who denies what happened. The Library of Congress offers every volume free to read online.

Part of the Boston Made Reader’s special collection Courage, Conscience & Service. Every book and document here is free to read.

The Holocaust Encyclopedia — U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

The best place to begin: a free, trusted encyclopedia of the Holocaust from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators persecuted and murdered six million European Jews, along with millions of others the regime targeted. The Holocaust is one of the most thoroughly documented crimes in history, and remembering it accurately is a responsibility that belongs to everyone.

The museum’s free Holocaust Encyclopedia has articles, maps, photographs, survivor testimony and primary documents in many languages. It is written for students and general readers and is the recommended starting point for this shelf.

A note on this shelf

Most memoirs by survivors are still under copyright and are not free to publish here. They are well worth buying or borrowing from your library. The documents on this shelf are official records and free resources you can read today.

Part of the Boston Made Reader’s special collection Courage, Conscience & Service. Every book and document here is free to read.

Helen Keller — Midstream: My Later Life (1929)

The sequel to The Story of My Life: Helen Keller’s adult years as a writer, speaker and advocate.

Midstream picks up where her first autobiography ends. Keller writes about lecture tours, a short career on the vaudeville stage, her work for the American Foundation for the Blind, and the people she met, including inventors, presidents and writers.

It is also a portrait of her decades-long partnership with Anne Sullivan, told as Sullivan’s own health was beginning to fail.

Part of the Boston Made Reader’s special collection Courage, Conscience & Service. Every book and document here is free to read.