We went to the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies (NIOD) today where we heard about the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI), a little about PARTHENOS (Pooling Activities, Resources and Tools for Heritage E-research Networking, Optimization and Synergies), and had a tour of NIOD.
Elske Rotteveel is a research assistant for NIOD and the international project manager for EHRI. EHRI is a digital infrastructure to aid researchers across Europe in Holocaust research, which has been historically difficult because of the flight of people across the world during and after the war.
Frank Eiterwaal is an information specialist with NIOD and involved with PARTHENOS, which is essentially an infrastructure for infrastructures. PARTHENOS brings together research organizations across countries to share best practices and strategies, and support common standards and services.
NIOD itself is located in the former house of a Dutch tobacco merchant. The vaults contain 2.5 linear kilometers of materials, including 120,000 photos, most of which are digitized and online. As for the other materials, only about 10% of them have been digitized because the process is expensive, in some cases doing so would infringe on copyrights (diaries are legally under copyright until 70 years after the author's death), and because of European privacy laws.
When we entered the vault, we asked about these boxes stacked in a corner. They were a new donation of Nazi documents awaiting processing. I had to curb my archival instincts to open them up for inspection and assessment!
