In 1992, YIVO acquired the Bund Archives, one of the foremost Jewish collections specializing in the history of the socialist and labor movements. Founded in Geneva by the Jewish socialist party commonly known as the "Bund," the Archives was transferred to Berlin 1919. In 1933, with the rise of the Nazi Party, the Bund Archives was smuggled over the border into France. The documents were confiscated by the Germans during the occupation period, but survived the war. The Archives was brought to the United States in 1951.
The Bund Archives contain not only the official records of the Jewish Labor Bund (as the Bund is officially known in English), but also important documents on the history of the revolutionary movement in tsarist Russia; the socialist, anarchist, territorialist, and labor movements in both Europe and the United States; Yiddish culture; and the Holocaust.