The Arolsen Archives is the world's most comprehensive archive on Nazi persecution, containing over 30 million documents on 17.5 million victims of concentration camps and forced labor. It was established in 1947 to help trace missing persons and has since evolved into an archive and research center. The documents are organized by name for tracing purposes and include concentration camp records, forced labor records, and post-war displaced persons records totaling over 96 million digitized documents. The archive is working to further digitize, describe, and provide online access to these historical records through projects like their online archive and e-guide.

1. Arolsen Archives
Collecting collections:
Arolsen-Archives and camps in the
Netherlands
22.11.2019Bad Arolsen, 1

2. Arolsen ArchivesArolsen Archives
1.1
The Arolsen
Archives
Looking back on 70 years of history
21.11.2019Amsterdam 2

3. Arolsen Archives
Arolsen Archives.
International Center on Nazi Persecution
• formerly: International Tracing Service (ITS)
• the world’s most comprehensive archive and
documentation center on Nazi persecution and
the liberated survivors
• approx. 30 million documents from 17.5 million
concentration camp inmates, forced laborers and
Displaced Persons (DPs)
• information for former persecutees and their
relatives as well as basis for research and
education
21.11.2019Amsterdam 3Central Name Index (CNI), photo: Arolsen Archives.

4. Arolsen Archives
Management, financing and staff of the Arolsen Archives
International Commission
with respresentatives from eleven countries:
Belgium France Germany
Great Britain Greece Israel
Italy Luxembourg Netherlands
Poland USA
Most countries are holding a copy of the digital archive (e.g.
USHMM in den US, Yad Vashem in Israel, Wiener Library in
the UK, IPN in Poland, etc.)
4Signing of the contracts, photo: Arolsen Archives.21.11.2019Amsterdam

5. Arolsen Archives
UNRRA – IRO – HICOG: The Allies as founders of the ITS
5Mural Painting, 1950ies, photo: Arolsen Archives.
Last years of
WWII Tracing of missing persons by the Allies and
various organizations
1945 - 1947 United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation
Administration (UNRRA) sets up the
Central Tracing Bureau (since 1946 in
Arolsen)
1947 - 1951 International Refugee Organization (IRO),
founding of the ITS in 1948, focus on finding
people and centralization of the various tracing
endeavors
1951 - 1955 Allied High Commission for Germany (HICOG),
focus on evaluation of the archive holdings
1955 - 2012 International Commission / Management:
International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC)
since 2012 International Commission
21.11.2019Amsterdam

6. Arolsen Archives
The order of the archive
The ITS was never meant to be an archive.
Everything was structured for tracing purposes.
That resulted in:
• sorting different documents under the
name of a person
• dissolving and rearranging independent
card indexes
• system perfectly developed to be searched
by names
• less effective for topical research
(but it is being enhanced)
6
ITS-envelope for individual documents, photo: Arolsen-Archives.
21.11.2019Amsterdam

7. Arolsen Archives
Structuring the search
“Meeting of Cards”:
“When A enquires after B their names are carded
into an index where they wait until B or possibly
C enquires after A.”
Carding the names mentioned on documents:
• one card for every named person on a
document (today: 50 million cards in the
Central Name Index)
• sorted by an alphabetical-phonetical system
(849 different spellings of Abrahamovic)
Decades of document acquisition
7
Central Name Index (CNI), photo: Arolsen-Archives.
21.11.2019Amsterdam

8. Arolsen Archives
Document Landscape of ITS
21.11.2019Amsterdam, 8
Concentration Camps
Persecution & Detention of Person
in Camps and Prisons between
1933 and 1945
~10.5 Mill. Documents (1.1.X)
~ 1.8 Mill. Documents (1.2.X)
Forced Labourer
Registration of Foreigners and
German Persecutees by Public
Institutions, Social Securities and
Companies (1939 - 1947)
~ 7.7 Mill. Documents
Post War Documents
Registrations and Files of Displaced
Persons, Children and Missing
Persons
~ 7.5 Mill. Documents
Miscellaneous
Death Marches
~ 0.08 Mill. Documents
Records of the ITS and its predecessors (Correspondence)
~ 20.7 Mill. Documents (as of end 2018; Digitization still underway)
Global Finding Aids Central Name Index; Inventory; etc.
~50 Mill. Documents
Special NSDAP organizations and
actions
Lebensborn, etc.
~ 0.05 Mill. Documents
Microfilms
Document aquisition
~ 2.4 Mill. Documents
Non digitized Material of ITS
Various Material, containing documents, Microfilms, CD´s, etc.
Archival Unit 10: ~450 running meters (~0.9 Mill. Documents)
Total about 96.6 Mill. digitized Documents + 8 Mill. Electronic Metadata objects
Internal structure of our Collections:
Since 1998 there were several
digitization projects to make the
documents electronically accessible.
The CNI was the main finding tool to
locate documents of persons since the
50´s.
Now there are more than 100 Mill.
digital objects in our database.
But less than 20 Mill. are searchable.

9. Arolsen ArchivesArolsen Archives
1.2
The Arolsen
Archives today
921.11.2019Amsterdam

10. Arolsen Archives
Projects
- Digitization of documents
Making documents electronically visible
- Archival Description & Indexation of Metadata
Making Information digital accessible
- E-Guide
Give the different documents a meaning
- Online Access
Make the stuff accessible for everybody
22.11.2019Bad Arolsen, 10

11. Arolsen Archives
New name in May 2019
1121.11.2019Amsterdam

12. Arolsen ArchivesArolsen Archives
2
Camps in the
Netherlands
1221.11.2019Amsterdam

13. Arolsen Archives
Overview of the Holdings
1321.11.2019Amsterdam
- Camp Amersfoort
more than 100K documents
- Concentration Camp Vught
more than 85K documents
- Camp Westerbork
more than 10K documents
~200K Docs, but only ~60K Names
Copy of a Transport List Westerbork (DokID 5154940)

14. Arolsen Archives
Eva SANDERS, born in Rotterdam April 27th 1901 1/3
Information from Oorlogslevens.nl
22.11.2019Bad Arolsen, 14

15. Arolsen Archives
Eva SANDERS, born in Rotterdam April 27th 1901 2/3
22.11.2019Bad Arolsen, 15

16. Arolsen Archives
Eva SANDERS, born in Rotterdam April 27th 1901 3/3
22.11.2019Bad Arolsen, 16

17. Arolsen ArchivesArolsen Archives
3
The Online
Archive of the
Arolsen Archives
1721.11.2019Amsterdam

18. Arolsen Archives
Links
Oorlogslevens.nl Arolsen-Archives.org
Online Archive E-Guide
Video
Making Holocaust Archives
Available to Everyone
22.11.2019Bad Arolsen, 18

19. Kontakt
Arolsen Archives
International Center on Nazi Persecution
Große Allee 5–9
34454 Bad Arolsen
Deutschland
T +49 5691 629-0
F +49 5691 629-501
E info@arolsen-archives.org
arolsen-archives.org