Archive Project at the Simon Wiesenthal Archive (SWA): Digitisation of the Image Carriers of Simon Wiesenthal’s Nazi Case Files

The core of Simon Wiesenthal's documentation activities are the case files on Nazi perpetrators and Nazi crime complexes, which were compiled by Wiesenthal and his colleagues at the BJVN Documentation Centre until 2005. There is a small collection (VWI-SWA,I.4) "Fotos von NS-Täterinnen und -Tätern, NS-Verbrechenskomplexen, Lagern, Lagerhäftlingen und KZ-Gedenkstätten" (engl.: "Photos of Nazi perpetrators, Nazi crime complexes, camps, camp prisoners and concentration camp memorials") containing these case files. These almost 750 photos, (glass) negatives, postcards and stickers were collected from 1945 to 2005 and are partly in a fragile condition. In addition to SS members and Nazi perpetrators, they also show victims of Nazi crimes as well as concentration camps and memorials. Hence these images make a fundamental contribution to the visualisation of the crimes documented in the case files, including the perpetrators and victims.

In order to make this collection usable for research, education and culture, the collection will be digitised and archivally processed in this project - financed by the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport, Section IV Arts and Culture. For this purpose, the photos will be scanned, assigned to the case files, recorded in the archive information system and will be searchable using keywords.