Scanning, tagging, uploading
The nuts and bolts of digitization
Over many decades, Arolsen Archives employees used the original documents from the Nazi period for their documentation and search work on a daily basis. To protect these documents, we began digitizing our holdings in 1998. In 2015 the first documents were searchable online, and since 2019 we’ve been working consistently to build our ever-growing digital memorial. It not only enables direct access to information but also helps preserve the memories in the long term. To that end, we conserve and scan the documents, tag them with keywords, and make them available online.
Scanning in accordance with international standards
Before being digitized, the fragile original documents are freed of damaging metal and newly sleeved. Loose sheets of paper, questionnaires, index cards, and bound books in every conceivable format are scanned in such a way as to do as little harm to the paper as possible. For this purpose, Arolsen Archives has special scan stations allowing high-quality images in accordance with ISO 19264/1—an international quality standard for preserving cultural heritage on paper. Color depth, tolerance values, color patterns—every day we measure the results and, after the analysis, adjust the scan settings as necessary.
Automatization and conservation
Currently we’re also launching a hybrid system that will not only improve the scan quality but also speed up the scanning process. The system combines an overhead scanner with a sheet-feed scanner, both controlled with a single program. This is helpful, for example, for digitizing the original hanging file folders from the concentration camps, complete with their contents: We have thousands of these folders in our holdings. After their digitization, the files are put into acid-free envelopes which in turn are kept in fire- and water-resistant protective boxes.
Archival description as a central building block
In our online archive, millions of documents are searchable by name. More than 90 percent of all our paper documents had already been digitized by 2019. But what documents are needed by scholars doing research on the death marches? And what information will be of use to descendants of persons documented? The job of the historians and archivists on our “archival description” team at Arolsen Archives is to explain the documents in the context of their origins.
The key to the document: indexing
Name indexing is an important key to our archival holdings. Every single document has been or will be evaluated accordingly. Indexing offers people researching individual fates interesting ways of going about their work. But there are also questions about overarching themes, places, nationalities, certain victim groups, etc. For this reason, we index all contents of every document that might be of use for searching, documentation, research, and education.
