In order to prevent the spread of COVID-19, our reading rooms will remain closed until further notice. This means that you cannot conduct research on our premises at the moment.  But the Arolsen Archives are still here to help you!

Although we cannot meet in person just now, there are lots of other ways to get in touch with us and access our archival holdings. In response to the current corona situation, we have set up a number of new service offerings to address the needs of academics in particular.

  • Online-Archive: Almost all the historical collections held by the Arolsen Archives have been online since April 2020. People from all over the world can use the online archive to access 26 million documents that contain information on 21 million names belonging to victims of Nazi persecution.
  • Submit an inquiry: The staff of the Arolsen Archives respond to research inquiries that are submitted in writing. Researchers, academics, and other interested parties may request information on a maximum number of ten individuals per quarter. If the search in the Arolsen Archives is successful, we provide you with the documents on the people concerned free of charge. We also make relevant documentation available to you free of charge in response to inquiries about specific topics.
  • Support for your research in the online archive: Please contact us if you have any questions about how to search the online archive. Please note that the fastest way to contact us is to use our inquiry form: Please choose “Documents on a specific topic” as the type of your inquiry. This makes it easy for you to send us your questions about how to search the online archive as well as about the collections and the documents it contains.
  • Remote Access: Urgent research projects must go on despite COVID-19! This is why we are now offering remote access to our own database, which can otherwise only be used in Bad Arolsen and on the premises of our copy holders in Washington, London, Jerusalem, and Pierrefitte-sur-Seine. Remote access gives you full access to the archive and allows you to work in the “virtual reading room” of the Arolsen Archives. Please contact our Archive team and provide them with a brief outline of your research project and a time schedule.

  • OuSArchiv Tutorial: Six video tutorials with useful research tips are now available to help make it easier for you to work with our database (OuSArchiv). They explain how the digital collection is structured and organized. We show you how to use the search masks, how to navigate, and how to save documents for research purposes. We also explain how to search for individual people using the Central Name Index and share tips on finding materials about specific groups, such as Jewish victims and survivors.
  • Every Name Counts: This crowdsourcing project gives you the opportunity to enter names from our documents into the online archive from the comfort of your own home. By doing this, you will be helping to make sure they will never be forgotten. We want to give you a simple way to participate in an act of active remembrance. You will be helping us to expand the online archive at the same time. Go to the project
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