NARA’s Office of the Chief Operating Officer, in collaboration with the Office of Innovation, Research Services, and the Office of Presidential Libraries, has created a new webpage and next generation finding aid that brings together NARA records and other relevant resources relating to Nazi concentration camps in one point of access to the National Archives Catalog.
This webpage includes an embedded interactive story map of Germany and Austria with the locations of Nazi concentration camps that were liberated by the U.S. armed forces in spring 1945 and for which the National Archives has a large body of records. Among these records are original camp records; records produced by U.S. Government agencies, both military and civilian; and captured German records, including evidence files assembled for war crimes proceedings. These records of both U.S. civil and military agencies include documentation developed through wartime intelligence and reconnaissance, captured during the camps’ liberation, and generated through postwar military investigations and tribunals.
By clicking on the location markers on the StoryMap for Buchenwald, Dachau, Flossenbürg (Flossenberg), Dora-Mittelbau (also known as Nordhausen or Dora-Nordhausen), and Mauthausen camps, a researcher will be able to access background information on these camps and links to descriptions of the records, and digital images of the records when available, in the National Archives Catalog. The web page also includes links to other records at NARA related to Nazi concentration camps, including presidential records, as well as selected digitized motion picture and audio recordings in the National Archives Catalog.
This represents an exciting step in NARA’s exploration of features for next generation finding aids and a new way to Make Access Happen.