Our Mission –
Our Work

Archiving originals and copies of documents has been part of the work of the Arolsen Archives ever since the institution was founded under the name “International Tracing Service” (ITS) in 1948. And it remains one of our core tasks to this day. Our collection now encompasses documents with information on more than 17.5 million victims and survivors of the Nazi regime.

Before the documents were digitized, they were essential tools that were used on a daily basis to help us in our work. Consulted for research, copied, packed, and unpacked – constant handling left its mark. As some of the originals suffered considerable damage, one of our key tasks is now restoration to safeguard documents that have been recognized by UNESCO as part of the world’s documentary heritage. This work involves de-acidifying the paper, storing the documents in archival-quality packaging, and maintaining the “damage register,” where we record which documents need to be protected from further deterioration and how urgently.

Making the millions of documents in our archive usable is an ongoing task. This involves providing access to the information they contain, adding context, processing them in other ways, and enriching the digital copies with metadata. Expanding our collections through document acquisition is another focus of our work, and new additions to our archives undergo this same process of digitization, indexing, and annotation.

Crowdsourcing projects such as #everynamecounts play an important and useful role in our work. We also use AI to help us. A typical application is the capture of information from millions of lists, such as the transport lists and death lists that were kept in concentration camps.

We harness our historical and archival expertise on a daily basis to explain the significance of the documents in the context in which they were created: Which information is required for academic research? And which information will be of help to users of the online archive? As more knowledge becomes available and the depth of indexing increases, opportunities for research are enhanced and more information is made readily available to victims’ relatives who search our collections online.

We began digitizing the documents in the Arolsen Archives back in 1998, using paper-friendly methods to protect the originals; around 90 percent of our holdings have already been scanned. We now use state-of-the-art technologies such as artificial intelligence to help us. Ongoing digitization helps us to preserve the documents, as the fragile originals are only needed in exceptional circumstances once they have been scanned. It also enables us to answer inquiries more quickly.

Our primary goal is to give people all over the world access to our documents by providing a comprehensive online archive. We have been expanding the scope of our online archive since 2019, partnering with other archives and museums to integrate additional relevant document collections and facilitate research beyond the holdings of the Arolsen Archives.

The current generation of 16-25 year olds (Gen Z) are more interested in the Nazi era than their parents are. When studying the period, they focus on urgent social problems, such as racism and discrimination. Providing the younger generation educational resources and authentic access to sources from this challenging historical period is an essential part of our mission, as is showing young people how they can actively engage with history in order to develop their own, fact-based perspective on the Nazi era.

In light of the increasing prevalence of right-wing extremism, antisemitism, and racism, there is an urgent need to rethink how we teach history and politics and the skills associated with these subjects. As the international center on Nazi persecution with the world’s most comprehensive archive on the victims and survivors of National Socialism, we see it as our responsibility to address this challenge. We want to offer engaging ways to teach young people about historical events and their aftermath using innovative learning methods. Educational resources from arolsen school address the life-worlds of young people today and are tailored to their learning, viewing, and media consumption habits.

The Arolsen Archives are a valuable resource for people from all over the world seeking information about victims of Nazi persecution. Clarifying fates is one of our core tasks. We offer this service free of charge. Our team conducts research, provides copies of archival documents, gives advice about external research, and offers contextual information on Nazi persecution. We provide this service to victims’ relatives, but also to historians, amateur researchers, and the press – as well as to all those who experienced and survived Nazi terror themselves, of course. Although many persecutes traveled tortuous journeys across Europe and records of their ordeal are usually incomplete, we are able to provide information in over 50 percent of cases.

We harness the power of modern digital communication to ensure that remembrance of victims of Nazi persecution remains accessible, visible, and alive. Our #StolenMemory and #everynamecounts initiatives are two examples of our innovative work in this field. Participation is a central principle of our projects as a means of encouraging active engagement with the fates of those who were persecuted and murdered. This approach helps us to draw the attention of younger generations to the work we do – and raise their awareness of the importance of democracy and human rights. Many schools are already using our initiatives for their own remembrance projects.

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Our “Outreach Eastern Europe” program raises awareness of the services offered by the Arolsen Archives in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe that were particularly affected by Nazi persecution, German occupation, and the Second World War. The focus is on Poland and – political conditions permitting – on Ukraine, Belarus, and the Russian Federation. We help the families of victims to clarify the fates of their loved ones and we work with local partners on educational programs and information services. The #StolenMemory initiative, dedicated to searching for relatives of concentration camp prisoners, is a central pillar of our work in Poland. A large team of volunteers supports us in this work.