The Holocaust Collection
Oct 19th, 2009 by sharbrough
Footnote has announced a new collection, the Holocaust Collection. It was created in partnership with the National Archives (NARA) and the Holocaust Museum (USHMM). Access to the collection is free during October 2009.
What is it?
The collection is divided into four parts: Stories, Concentration Camps, Looted Valuables, and NARA records.
There are 600 Stories from the USHMM. A new user named USHolocaustMemorialMuseum has contributed almost 3000 items to the site. Just more than half of those are comprised by the 600 stories, along with photos and links associated with each story. In my view, it gives this section more legitimacy than if it had been contributed by some random user, like, say, me. The stories can be accessed several ways, but the “wall of photos” that links to them is similar to the experience one has when they attend the museum in Washington DC.
The Concentration Camps area appears to be a set of user stories contributed by Footnote staff, describing 18 concentration camps. There are maps of their locations, brief descriptions of each camp, and detailed stories of people who were there.
In the lists below, the number of images and percent completion are numbers on the Footnote site as of 15 Oct 2009. They change daily, and are only given here as an indication of the scope of the collection, and the approximate status of publication.
NARA TITLES – “LOOTED VALUABLES”
Ardelia Hall was an art expert who worked with the State Department during and after WWII. As art objects were found, they were taken to collection points, two of which were Wiesbaden and Offenbach. The following titles from NARA are included on Footnote as “Looted Valuables.”
- M1947 – Ardelia Hall Weisbaden records (117 rolls), divided into three titles – Administrative records (96,500 images), photos (252), and property cards (26,527) on Footnote. Listed as 98% complete on Footnote.
- M1942 – Ardelia Hall Offenbach administrative records and photos (13 rolls), split into two titles - photos (2073) and administrative records (6465) on Footnote. Last week this title was listed as 90% complete on Footnote.
- M1782 – The OSS art looting investigative records (1 roll). Footnote has 1,176 images, and lists this title as 100% complete.
NARA TITLES – CONCENTRATION CAMPS
- M1938 – Dachau Registers (7 rolls). Footnote has 573 images, listed as 42% complete. That would be 3 rolls, but there would normally be about 1,000 images per roll, not 175.
- M1935 – Flossenberg Registers (2 rolls). Footnote has 1,215 images, and lists the title as 50% complete.
- T990 – Mauthausen Death Records (2 rolls). Footnote has 94 images, listed 50% complete. This seems low.
- M1270 – Nuremberg Interrogations (31 rolls). 28,239 images, 96% complete.
NARA TITLES – OTHER
- T1021 – German War Crime Records (20 rolls). 12,968, 70% complete.
- A3355 – Lists and Registers of German Concentration Camp Inmates (189 rolls). Entitled “Captured German Records” by Footnote. 27,043 images, 6% complete.
These titles total about 340,000 images, of which 203,000 were on the site as of 15-Oct-2009. I have read online that the collection contains “millions of images” (false), “millions of records” (questionable), and “millions of names (um, how many is that? At least 2 million? It seems like too many, but maybe so.). I find myself skeptical of claims that smack of hyperbole, and suggest that researchers dismiss such claims until proven out by specifics. There is a good chance that 200,000 images contains more than a million names, and possibly even “millions” – but the names aren’t indexed yet.
For instance, in A3355, there are 1727 pages, identified only by numbers, for Buchewald Death Lists, for the period described “Aug 1942-Mar 1942, Jan 1945-Dec 1944.” Each page is a death card, representing the end of a life. These cards are not indexed, and one cannot search for the names. The size of the collection implies that there are almost 200,000 of these records.
My glass is half full, not half empty. I’m not complaining about the lack of names. I simply suggest that we describe these records as the type and quantity that are actually here, and avoid exaggeration. Every life is special, and getting jiggy with the numbers obscures that point.
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