Pilot project on the “Reich Association of Jews in Germany”

The Federal Archives, the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar and the Conservation and Restoration programme at HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen are planning a joint pilot project aimed at restoring historically significant documents which belonged to the “Reich Association of Jews in Germany”, ultimately seeking to make them accessible and preserve them for future generations. In doing so, they are also testing options for longer-term cooperation in the field of the mass restoration of cultural assets. The project was launched at the beginning of 2024 and was recently presented in Berlin.

Among the collections preserved by archives and libraries are collections that cannot be used in their original form or digitised due to severe fire, water or acid damage. This means they are not accessible to the general public. The Duchess Anna Amalia Library Weimar and the HAWK Department of Conservation and Restoration of Written Material, Books and Graphics have experience in the application and development of large-scale methods for the restoration of severely damaged library materials. This collaborative project with the Federal Archives will involve the use and expansion of such methods. Innovative procedures drawn from cellulose research and multispectral digitisation are used. The pilot project being pursued by the three institutions is dedicated to nine objects from Federal Archive inventory item R 8150 of the “Reich Association of Jews in Germany”: these were selected as the first set of items to be restored and made accessible for use.

The Reich Association was established by the National Socialist state in 1939, with all those who were considered Jews under the Nuremberg Laws were forced to become members. As such, it served those in power as a means of exercising control over the Jews who remained in Germany and of confiscating large parts of emigrants’ assets. From 1941 onwards, the Gestapo used the membership files of the Reich Association to order deportations to concentration camps and extermination camps. Yet up until 1941 the Reich Association was also able to help Jews flee Germany.

Part of this collection is in a poor state of conservation and therefore currently unusable. Until now, there were no technical methods available for restoring a collection of this size. The pilot project involves taking existing methods for large-scale restoration of fragile library items and applying these to severely damaged archive materials, thereby expanding the range of application.