The Documentation of the Holocaust The Holocaust is one of the darkest chapters of human history.

Millions lost their lives during this terrible time. Jews, Gypsies, Handicapped, Homosexuals, and others that the Nazi government of Germany deemed undesirables were rounded up and slaughtered. After the War, when it was finally possible to bring justice to those responsible for these horrific massacres, those prosecuting the offenders had mountains of evidence to support the charges. The Holocaust was one of the most documented eras of recent history. There are more surviving documents of the Holocaust than from any other historical era. Countless stories from survivors and diaries from others who did not survived the Second World War. Besides these accounts from victims, the Nazis themselves left extensive thinly disguised records of their atrocities. Rescuers made certain that there was a great deal of written, photographic, and video evidence of the horrific conditions they encountered. Accused Nazi war criminals and witnesses gave accounts of the atrocities of the Holocaust during the Nuremberg trials. Even today, new accounts are discovered that give deeper insight into these dark times (Dawidowicz, 1976). During the war, the Bund, a Jewish labor union, documented and publicized many of the war crimes that were occurring at that time. Their goal was to ensure that the world knew about the atrocities that were occurring in Europe during that era. Their leader, Szmul Zygielbojm, committed suicide in London in 1943, leaving a letter decrying the worlds lack of empathy for the victims of these heinous crimes. The library and archives of the Bund were smuggled into France during the war, confiscated during the French Occupation, and brought to the United States in 1951. After the war, a large library of source documents survived, with documents from the Russian Revolution, Tsarist Russia, the labor movement, Yiddish culture and the Holocaust.

The collection now resides at YIVO, the Institute for Jewish Research, in New York City (Baur, 2001). Technology and Documentation Technology during the Holocaust was in its fledgling era. There were no computers, yet, but the Holocaust occurred at the dawn of the information age. New technologies were available to organize and document many of the details of the Final Solution, and everyday life in Germany. Radio, telephone, photography, and video were all available during this time and all played a vital role in documenting the events of the Holocaust. Other technologies were either recently invented, or were just beginning to become frequently used by businesses and governments (Black, 2001). IBMs Role in Documentation One of these inventions was the IBM card sorter, which functioned like a primitive database in the decades before computers were invented. The card sorter was used by German officials to organize information such as: census information, train cargo and schedules, currency and materials collected from prisoners, and other statistical data. IBM was founded as a census tabulating company by Herman Hollerith in 1898 and the company had organized over 30 years worth of census information by the time Hitler came to power in 1933. This census data was used to sort through the population generations back to find those with Jewish or Gypsy ancestry. It was also used to determine which houses to raid, and how many family members to expect in each house (Black, 2001). There is no question that IBM officials knew what their Hollerith machines were being used for. IBM did not sell its machines to businesses and governments; instead the company leased them. All of the 1.5 billion punch cards used annually had to be purchased from IBM, as

there was no other source for them. The machines were fragile and needed frequent onsite repairs, even in the death camps. IBM kept duplicates of all of the most crucial code books at its branch office in Berlin. The company's own business model is the most damaging evidence against it (Black, 2001).

Survivor's Accounts One of the most famous accounts from the Holocaust came from the diary of a young girl, Anne Frank. Anne and her family hid with several other people in an attic above a spice factory once managed by Otto Frank, Anne's father in Amsterdam. During this time Anne kept a detailed diary of her experiences. When they were found by Nazis and taken away, Miep Kies, one of Otto's employees who helped them hide, found the diary. She kept it safe in hopes of returning it to Anne. Of the eight people who hid in that attic, only Otto Frank survived. He edited portions of the diary, and it was published, becoming an international bestseller. Several movies based on the diary have also been filmed (Frank, Frank, & Pressler, 1986). One account came from a survivor who had assisted the SS in exterminating his own people. Dr. Miklos Nyiseli told of the horrific experiments conducted on patients that occurred in Auschwitz, under the watchful eyes of Dr. Joseph Mengele. Nyiselis account explores the feelings of denial and self-preservation that occurred while assisting the SS as a Sonderkommando, or kommando of the living dead. While Nyiseli and other prisoners were able to save their lives by participating in the atrocities of Auschwitz and other camps, there were often psychological consequences that had lasting effects (Nyiseli, 2011). Accounts in the mainstream media include Elie Wiesels Night, an account of his experiences in Auschwitz. In 1987, Art Siegelman wrote and illustrated Maus, an account of his

father's experiences during the Holocaust in comic format. Other survivors accounts include books by Corrie ten Boom, Dr. Victor Frankl, and Lengyel (Baur, 2001). Stephen Spielberg introduced many people to the acts of German Industrialist Oskar Schindler with his film Schindler's List. Spielberg also helped to establish the Shoa Foundation, whose mission is to capture the accounts of Holocaust survivors before they are lost. Other organizations have similar goals in attempting to preserve these stories. Recently, one company began preserving the accounts of Holocaust survivors using 3D capture devices and holograms (Katz, 2013). In addition to these accounts, there are innumerable accounts available in libraries and archives. Fictionalized accounts of the war, such as novels and films, also play a part in informing people about the Holocaust. The Jewish Labor group, the Bund, played a large role in documenting the atrocities of the Holocaust for the world, and their archives are now located in New York. Other archives include the Jewish Virtual Library, The National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., Yad Vashem, The Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority, and other libraries and museums in locations throughout the world, including Israel and Germany (Niewyk, 2003; Black, 2001). Evidence Found By Liberating Soldiers and Aid Organizations Liberating soldiers and prisoners of war were some of the first to be able to enter the camps and document the conditions. Aid organizations, such as the International Red Cross, who worked to ease the suffering of survivors also kept accounts of the suffering they witnessed. They captured this information in diaries, official reports, photographs, and videos. Many were shocked at the horrors they found, and made a point to document what they saw for justice and

for posterity. This documentation was gathered for the purpose of prosecuting those who committed these war crimes (Baur, 2001). Much of the evidence gathered by soldiers and aid organizations was used in the war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg. Here, the world heard harrowing details of the atrocities of the Holocaust, and the weak defense of those involved. These testimonies made the horrors of the Holocaust real to those who had not lived through those events (Niewyk, 2003). Despite the vast amounts of documentation available to researchers, there remains a portion of the population which remains unconvinced of its authenticity or objectivity. These Holocaust deniers turn their backs on mountains of documentation, research, and testimony in order to claim that there is a Jewish conspiracy. They dispute the numbers and accounts that are backed by decades of evidence. Many do this out of ignorance, while others are led by the same Anti-Semitic influences that brought this monstrosity to the world.

Works Cited Baur, Y. (2001). A History of the Holocaust. New York: Franklin Watts. Bessel, R. (2001). Life in the Third Reich. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Black, E. (2001). IBM and the Holocaust. New York: Crown. Dawidowicz, L. S. (1976). A Holocaust Reader. West Orange, NJ: Behrman House, Inc. Frank, A., Frank, O., & Pressler, M. (1986). Diary of a Young Girl, the Definitive Edition. New York: Bantam. Katz, L. (2013, February 11). Holograms of Holocaust Survivors Let Crucial Stories Live On. Retrieved from CNET: news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57568301-1/holograms-ofholocaust-survivors-let-crucial-stories-live-on/ Niewyk, D. L. (2003). The Holocaust. Boston: Houghlin Mifflin. Nyiseli, M. (2011). Auschwitz. New York: Arcade.