Salon Jewish Studies Blog

As some of you obviously noticed, there was a break in publishing new posts on the Salon Jewish Studies Blog during the last months. The reason is, that we are working on a new project, called Jewlib - Digital Archive Library of Primary Sources for Jewish History and Cultures. This project is a work in progress, like the Salon Jewish Studies. The aims of the project are (among others):

Help through the cultural heritage protection organization „Blue Shield“
A bus full of archivists and conservators left Den Haag on April 26, 2009 morning to support the recovery and rescue of material at the collapsed Cologne Historical Archive (CHA). 75 experts from France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and America will help for a week.
On May 5, 2009 it was reported that in four days nearly 2 (shelf)km were processed. Besides compliments, some supportes at the scene also express critical points (extract from Archivalia May 4, 2009):

"I noticed that German archivists see their job mainly as administration not tradition (store and prepare heritage)…
Double or not relevant material is not separated from the inventory, so the collections are unorganized and confus. In Germany not much of the material is assorted and rearranged, many documents are in original packages (as they came) and rivets and clips are not removed systematically.
The German colleagues did a good job on organizing transport and accommodation for 80 people from abroad.
More supervision during the work was needed. Some of the volunteers had no experiences in archival work and were confused by the registration of the documents. Nobody checked our work, it seemed that the organization focuses on speed. This was successful in any case, in four days, nearly 2 (shelf)km processed!"

Archival collections recoverd from the intact archive cellar on April 21, 2009
The fire department recovered 850 (shelf) m of inventory from the intact archive cellar of the collapsed building – mostly newspapers but also parts of private papers and collections.
Among others the personal collections of Wallraf and Schneider-Wessling were recovered intactly from archive cellar:
" .... The rescued material is in proper condition, the speaker of the fire department Daniel Leupold announced. The ceiling of the room was able to bear the weight while other parts collapsed. The fire department recovered the material through the back of the building with the help of a seven meter ramp and rolling containers.
The complete collections of the architect Prof. Erich Schneider-Wessling and the author Günter Wallraf were stored in this cellar. Wallraf received the message that his 200 boxes with material were recovered while arguing with lawyers. ‘Today, I celebrate my second birthday’ Wallraf announced. Wallraf calls it lucky because he just needed a part of his material for a current project.
Schneider-Wessling is also happy that his work from the last 50 years is accessible again, originals of plans, competition papers, sketches and much more…” (Koelner Stadtanzeiger, April 21, 2009)

Former Summaries
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse XIV, Tuesday April 20th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse XIII, April 2nd 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse XII, March 24th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse XI, March 21th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse X, March 20th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse IX, March 18th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VIII, March 17th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VII, March 15th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VI, March 13th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse V, March 12th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse IV, March 11th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse III, March 10th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse II, March 09th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse I, March 08 th 2009

SEE ALSO
COLOGNE HISTORICAL ARCHIVE - POSSIBILITIES TO HELP
International Blue Shield Mission

GERMAN
http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/Kommunalarchive

Solidarity group on facebook
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=58486607084

Invitation for all donors of private collections (KStA via Archivalia)
The City of Cologne will invite all donors of private collections and depositaries to the Piazetta in the City Hall on May 11th. The head of the department, Gisela Fleckenstein explains the late date with the task to organize 10 (shelf) m of contracts to find out what the archive holds (held) and who are the depositaries. Fleckenstein says: „In case we forgot somebody, please feel invited.“

Recovery process already finished at the end of May? (KstA via Archivalia)
After a short Easter break, the fire department Cologne and the Federal Agency for Technical Relief continue their work at the collapsed building in Severinstraße. This week the volunteer fire department Aachen is helping. The mountain of rubble decreases every day. “It could be possible that we will be finished at the end of May” notes the speaker of the fire department, Günter Weber, but he also limits: “We do not know exactly how further it goes into the depth.”
A special driller, that transports rock specimens from up to 50 m depth, was used to examine the condition of the ground. “This way you can find out if there is more rubble in the depth“, reports Weber. In the meantime, exvacators pull down the backside of the former CHA building, remains of the reading room and the offices.
Nearly half of the former 30 (shelf) km have been recovered in different conditions. “It will take years to restore and sort the documents“, said Gisela Fleckenstein. “Die several papers and collections are one big mess.“

What do we learn from Cologne Historical Archive's collapse? (Die Welt via Archivalia)
" ..... that we must deal with our history more careful. This is not about a building in Cologne that collapsed but about our historical memory. Therefore this collapse is a societal problem, in which the politics has got more involved. Knowledge and concepts exist, only financing is missing. In general, we need a wider awareness of our archives, for they store our history and make it researchable…” , said Jochen Hermel (Institute for History, University of Bonn; Hermel works on his PhD thesis about integration of migrants to the City of Cologne in the 16th and the beginning 17th century)

Former Summaries
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse XIV, Tuesday March 20th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse XIII, April 2nd 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse XII, March 24th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse XI, March 21th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse X, March 20th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse IX, March 18th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VIII, March 17th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VII, March 15th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VI, March 13th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse V, March 12th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse IV, March 11th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse III, March 10th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse II, March 09th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse I, March 08 th 2009

SEE ALSO
COLOGNE HISTORICAL ARCHIVE - POSSIBILITIES TO HELP
International Blue Shield Mission

GERMAN
http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/Kommunalarchive

Solidarity group on facebook
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=58486607084

In cooperation with the Jewish Museum of Maryland (JMM), the Baltimore Jewish Times is helping to identify unidentified individuals in historical photographs by presenting them on their webpage.

"The Jewish Museum of Maryland has the largest single collection of regional Jewish Americana in the U.S. Our collections include works of art, historical photographs, clothing, ceremonial items, rare books, everyday objects, documents, oral histories, and memorabilia. The collections embody the story of Jewish life in Maryland - immigration, family history, business, congregational and organizational life, leisure, consumption, and contemporary culture." The JMM hosts a searchable database to the museum collections.

A PDF-version of the Kedem Auction House is available online. It includes not only a list of the 529 titles for sale but also an index and front covers of selected items.

"Kedem Auction House was established in 2008 by Meron Eren, Avishay Geller and Eran Reiss. The owners have been dealing for many years with antique Jewish books and manuscripts, and items related to the history and culture of the Jewish people. Avishay specialized in Religious books (Sifrei Kodesh) and rabbinical manuscripts, while Meron and Eran specialized in modern day Jewish history and culture." (Kedem Auction House website)

"This April 24-26, 2009, students from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College, and the Illinois Institute of Technology will present “Chai-Art”, a collection of works exploring Jewish Identity. “Chai” (pronounced “high”) is the Hebrew word for life, and echoes the mission of Hillels Around Chicago: to foster vibrant Jewish life in a welcoming and pluralistic atmosphere.
The title also plays off the term 'High Art', often used to distinguish traditional art disciplines from craft and the decorative arts.
Student artists were asked to approach their work from a Jewish perspective. 'What does it mean to be a Jewish artist? What does it mean to be a Jew?' Explained Erin Jones, Program Director of Hillel Arts in the Loop, 'Art can be an invaluable way of processing these questions of identity and purpose.” Hillel Arts in the Loop challenges students to express their histories, ethnicities, and identities through fine arts, performance, writing, and new media.' (via JUF News)

The Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin presents between April 5th and June 29th 2009 the first retrospective of the photographer Liselotte Grschebina (1908-1994) in the framework of the Berliner Festspiele. The exhibition shows 100 photographs taken between 1929 and the 1940s in Germany and Palestine:
"Liselotte Grschebina, née Billigheimer, was born the daughter of a Karlsruhe merchant on 2 May 1908. When she was six years old, her father was killed while serving at the front in the First World War. From 1925 to 1928 she studied at the Baden Art School in Karlsruhe (now a state academy). Upon graduating in 1929 she herself taught photography there until 1931. A year later she opened her own studio under the name of “Bilfoto”, specializing in advertising photography and children’s portraits. Her independence did not last long, as the Nazi seizure of power forced her to close her studio. In March 1934 she and her husband left for Palestine, where they settled in Tel Aviv.
The present retrospective reveals the art of a young woman who in the period of the Weimar Republic was inspired by the New Sobriety (Neue Sachlichkeit). The Neue Sachlichkeit was distinguished by clarity of form and structure and the beauty of simple things. At the same time it had a documentary character, which concentrated on the essence of an object. Grschebina developed this style further in her new home in Palestine and integrated her work with that of the influential group of German photographers, who came with the fifth wave of immigration (Hebrew: aliyah) and settled mainly in Tel Aviv." (Gropius-Bau website)

The German newspaper Spiegel published in its online version the brief article Experte fordert Ende der Raubkunst Debatte [expert ask to end the debate about looted art] today. It includes information based on an interview with the long-standing curator of the Royal Academy of Arts (London) - Sir Norman Rosenthal:

"'Unfassbar Furchtbares ist geschehen. Wie wollen Sie das vergeben? Indem Sie einen Tizian einpacken?', sagte der langjähriger Kurator der Royal Academy in London im SPIEGEL-Interview. Er verstehe, dass sich viele Museumsdirektoren nicht nur in Deutschland gegen Restitutionsansprüche wehren, sagte Rosenthal, der selbst aus einer jüdischen Emigrantenfamilie stammt. Seine Mutter flüchtete aus Deutschland. [...] Bei der ganzen Diskussion müsse man im Auge behalten, dass der Kunstmarkt in den vergangenen Jahren explodiert sei und Begehrlichkeiten geweckt habe. "Die Leute, die da mitverdienen wollen, erinnern mich an Aasgeier", sagte er dem SPIEGEL. Oft genug werde ein Bild sofort nach der Restitution veräußert, 'und so mancher Anwalt erhält 50 Prozent des Erlöses'."

Rosenthal, one of the main critics of restitution processes was also cited in the online version of the NEW YORK Jewish Week on April 1, 2009:

"If we were still in 1950 and the people who owned the Manet or the Monet were still alive, then it would surely be correct to give these paintings back [...] but not now and not to grandchildren and great-grandchildren"


For more information on looted art

http://www.lootedart.com/ (site contains a information database on looted art from forty nine countries and a object database with which contains details of 25,000 objects)

http://www.beutekunst.de/ (pilot project, at the moment information on looted art in Saxony-Anhalt)

Operation Head Quarter and Center for Rescue at the scene (Erstversorgungszentrum) report success (Press service city of Cologne March 31, 2009 via Archivalia)
Four weeks after intensive recovery and rescue work at the collapsed Cologne Historical Archive (CHA), a measurable success shows.
There will be more documents rescued from the rubble than assumed before. The fire department carted off 5.224 tons of rubble on 371 truck loadings yesterday. The staff of the CHA (Erstversorgungszentrum) reported that seven (shelf) km of material had been recovered at the scene.
Together with three (shelf) km stored in the cellar of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium and one (shelf) km stored in the not collapsed part of the cellar, 11 (shelf) km archive inventory survived so far. Before the collapse, the CHA building hosted 30 (shelf) km material.
The recovered material is in most different condition. Priority is the restoring „first aid“ and the appropriate storage until the recovery work is finished. Many volunteers from all over Germany did and still do valuable work on this which will be needed in the following months.
The City of Cologne considers preferred experts like archivists, conservators and related fields. An appropriate restoration can only be done in future times.

1,045 meters of recovered inventory from the Cologne Historical Archive's collection (CHA) (Koelner Stadtanzeiger March 20, 2009 via Archivalia)
1045 meters of the (former) 27 shelf-kilometers Cologne Historical Archive inventory have been recovered. It seems little but means in figures that 1000 recovery tubs (each 1 m material), 20 lattice boxes (for wet material, each 1,5 m material) have been filled with findings from the rubble.
Among this were two Albertus Magnus handwritings, four of the Weinsberg books (16th century) und parts of the 550 Schreinsbücher (13th-18th century) also parts of the Ratsprotokolle (constitution and administration documents of the Imperial City from the Middle Ages until Early Modern Times). 50 outsized deeds, valuable individual pieces of the Haupturkundenarchiv (central deeds archive) were also recovered.
The discovered documents of modern times are mostly parts and pieces: personal papers of the former Lord Mayor Ernst Schwering and the city treasurer Billstein, inventory of Lord Majors Cologne after 1945, City Archive Porz (postwar period) and pieces of postwar municipal documents.

"The black hole of history", Die Sueddeutsche focuses in the article Das Schwarze Loch der Geschichte (March 14, 2009) on different personal perspectives relating to the Cologne archive collapse (via Archivalia):
Ten days ago on a sunny day, Cologne sunk in darkest night: 65000 deeds, 26 shelf-kilometers files, 500000 photos, 780 bequests/personal paper collections – 1200 years old memory of the city was buried under rubble in a few seconds. (…)
Hans Bender is one of the 780 donors of his personal papers. For many years, he published the probably most important postwar literature-journal “Akzente”, besides prose, poetry and own works. 27000 documents of him, including letter exchanges with the whole postwar authors that were a comment to the federal republican literature, were stored in this archive. (…)
Dominik Haffner is one of the Marburg referenda says, while putting shredded pieces of a 17th century handwriting away, he does not believe that even 20% will be rescued. (…)
He and his colleagues are not to look that the material closely, because they are working against time: As soon as the wet material reaches air (out of the rubble), it must be brought to the freezing storage room within 14 hours, otherwise mildew will develop. (…)
Eberhard Illner, for all his interlocutors the archive is not visible anymore, but the former head of department can walk through it in his imagination. During the talk, he repeats that the papers of Hans Meyers were on the 3rd floor and Günter Wands’ papers on the 5th floor in the back. Illner (now archivist in Wuppertal) had worked in CHA for 22 years, he established four of the six stores, during the talk he starts crying several times. Since the beginning of 2008, he had noticed and reported defects and disruptions at the building without be taken serious. He now is called a denigrator of the “archival guild”, because he pointed out his information to the public after the collapse and is alleged to have broken his official discretion.

Koelner Stadtanzeiger reports on action force at the scene on March 20, 2009 (via Archivalia)
For the first time, since the collapse of the archive building in Cologne (CHA) on March 3rd, the rescue teams of the firefighter department, the volunteer firefighters and the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) will take a one day break on Sunday. The work will be continued on Monday at 7 a.m., said Daniel Leupold from the firefighter department. On today’s Saturday, 60 supporters – like all past days – will be working until the onset of dark around 7 p.m.
Strenuously, they pull files, deeds and other valuable subjects belonging to the CHA inventory out of the rubble. On Friday, the supporters found much material from the 20th century, under it comments on the German Empire Constitution (Deutsche Reichsverfassung) dated 1918. On Thursday, 14 truck loadings had been recovered. In the storage hall (Cologne outside district) where the loadings of rubble and material are brought to, dozens of supporters are searching for material that is in a restorable condition.
The action force at the collapsed building needs to work carefully to minimize the risk of injury which is very high, says Leupold. So far two men were hit by stones: One man of the THW had a concrete piece slid against his leg, he got outpatient treatment. A stone hit the shoulder of a firefighter but recovered quick and returned to work.

Over Thirty-five Passover Haggadot will be displayed , between March 21-April 15, 2009 at Kresge Art Museum. The exhibition The Story of Exodus: The Passover Haggadah shows artifacts from the Michigan State University (MSU) libaries special collections, which contain "450,000 printed works, numerous manuscript and archival collections, and an extensive collection of ephemera." (MSU Lib.) [...] "At the MSU Main Library’s Special Collections, historically important 20th century examples will be on view, ranging from consumer-product and feminist Haggadot to those from Israeli kibbutzim.
Related events are a discussion of Geraldine Brooks’ “The People of the Book” at 5:30 p.m. April 1, led by Marc Bernstein, Jewish Studies and College of Arts and Letters, and a gallery talk on collecting Jewish heritage and illustrated Haggadot at noon April 13, led by Constance Harris, author, collector and donor of Haggadot." (MSU News)

The Archivnachrichten Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg [Archive News State Archive Baden-Wuerttemberg] No. 38, March 2009 (PDF) focuses on Jewish Historical Sources. The section "Fragmente Juedischen Lebens" [fragments of Jewish life] contains 21 articles.

"Archive sind getreue Zeugen ihrer Zeit. In der schriftlichen Überlieferung spiegelt sich authentisch und unmittelbar die jeweilige Epoche wider. Was im Allgemeinen gilt, trifft in bedrückenderWeise gerade auch für die Überlieferung zur deutschjüdischen Geschichte zu. Peter Honigmann, der Leiter des Zentralarchivs zur Erforschung der Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland, bilanziert nüchtern in diesem Heft: „Flucht und Verfolgung haben nicht nur menschliches Leid bewirkt, sie haben auch die Überlieferung der schriftlichen Zeugnisse einer langen deutschjüdischen Geschichte erheblich durcheinander gebracht.“ Nur bruchstückhaft sind die Quellen überliefert, die zudem jüdisches Leben zumeist aus christlicher Perspektive schildern oder die Sichtweise von Verwaltungen wiedergeben, deren Aufgabe es war, die Handlungsmöglichkeiten jüdischer Bürgerinnen und Bürger zu reglementieren und einzuengen, bis hin zu der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus,wo sie Entrechtung,Verfolgung und Mord rganisierten und dokumentierten. [...]" (Editorial)

"Ten times worse than in Weimar", Michael Knoche, director of Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, caught the speaker’s eye (sueddeutsche.de March 19, 2009 via Archivalia)

…the state of the material is totally mixed. Some documents were covered and protected by the rubble others were destroyed by it.
Up to now, it is uncertain how much of the inventory can be rescued: Some experts assume 20%, optimists suspect 50%. The recurrence of both valuable Albertus Magnus handwritings gives hope. In any case, a majority of single pieces will be rescued rather than inventoried material groups. Scientific research will be made difficult thereby.
The general mindlessness dealing with our written cultural possessions must come to an end. The Elbe flood water in Dresden 2002, the fire in the Herzogin Anna Amalia Library 2004 and the Cologne Historical Archive building’s collapse 2009, obviously pandered by negligence, are three warning symbol (Menetekel); the Biblical king Belsazar only needed one to understand the warning.

Former Summaries
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse IX, Tuesday March 18th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VIII, Tuesday March 17th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VII, Tuesday March 15th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VI, Tuesday March 13th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse V, Tuesday March 12th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse IV, Tuesday March 11th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse III, Tuesday March 10th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse II, Tuesday March 09th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse I, Tuesday March 08 th 2009

SEE ALSO: COLOGNE HISTORICAL ARCHIVE - POSSIBILITIES TO HELP

GERMAN: http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/Kommunalarchive

Good News: Cooperation between Cologne Digital Archive (CDA) and City of Cologne (CDA, March 18th 2009 via Archivalia)

"Over the last days, we [CDA] received many enquiries concerning legal issues and the Digital Historical Archive. Even in the press and relevant news groups and mailing lists, this topic has been discussed.
Against this background, the initiators, prometheus e.V. (Cologne) in cooperation with the Department for History (Bonn), and the Cologne Historical Archive will clarify the legal situation in a cooperation contract. This will create a legal basis for the uploaders, the initiators and the CHA.
After a particular interlocution, all persons in charge agreed that this project will be continued under the supervision of the CHA and will be transformed into a 'citizen’s archive' (Buergerarchiv)."

Former Summaries
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VIII, Tuesday March 17th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VII, Tuesday March 15th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VI, Tuesday March 13th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse V, Tuesday March 12th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse IV, Tuesday March 11th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse III, Tuesday March 10th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse II, Tuesday March 09th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse I, Tuesday March 08 th 2009

SEE ALSO: COLOGNE HISTORICAL ARCHIVE - POSSIBILITIES TO HELP

GERMAN: http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/Kommunalarchive

Many older books have not been seen for years, including a 1555 edition of 12th-century Jewish scholar Moses Ben Maimon's [acronym: Rambam] Letter on Astrology.

[...]

'There are a number of reasons why collection items may not be at their correct shelf location: they may have been misplaced on the shelves, the shelf mark label may have become detached from the spine and the item is being checked and reshelved, or the catalogue record may not have been altered to reflect a changed shelf mark,' Ms Perkins [Library's head of records]said."

For further missing treasures, see also British Library mislays 9,000 books, March 17th 2009 (The Guardian)

Peter Brantley (Executive Director for the Digital Library Federation) on The orphan monopoly:

"There are a large number of ways that books might fall into orphan status. A quick consultation of Peter Hirtle’s copyright table at Cornell Univ. allows us to see how easy this is. The impact of foreign rights is fiendishly complicated, and even the rules for U.S. publications are baroque; for older works it is a crafty rightsholder indeed who can figure out whether they might retain a claim. As Peter Hirtle observed to me in an email, 'The lengthening copyright terms and the gradual removal of formalities (especially the automatic renewal of works published since 1963) means that works that would have passed into the public domain in the past because the rights owners weren't concerned are still protected. The chances that the rights holders are either unidentifiable or not locatable also goes up.'
[...]
There are rough estimates of around 7 million digitized volumes in GBS [Google Book Search;] (see also: Salon JS Google Book Search - Volltexte (Zionistica) [German]) subtracting 750,000 newly identified works gives us 6.25 million. Let’s take a guess that there are maybe 1.5 million public domain works (this is not entirely out of the blue, but informed by earlier orphan works studies and reports), leaving 4.75 million titles. That’s a lot of books – about 2/3 of the total. It might be more, it might be less; it is a big number.
[...]
A large number of these orphans are going to be truly public domain books, just like pre-1923 works. However, we may never know that they actually have public domain status due to historically incomplete record keeping, and the lack of a national rights tracking and notification infrastructure." (via Archivalia@Twitter)

Recommended:
Article "Public domain" on Wikipedia

Articles in Archivalia ref. to "Public domain" (German)

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS a database of 4,120,985 [March, 18th 2009] freely usable media files TO WHICH ANYONE CAN CONTRIBUTE!

Cologne Historical Archive's head getting criticism concering copyright statement (Koeln.de March 16th 2009 via Archivalia)
Director of the Cologne Historical Archive is now getting criticism concerning the copyright statement.
Since March 7th, the initiative “Digital Historical Archive Cologne” offers the opportunity to upload copies of the material from the collapsed archive. This way, scientist can help to restore the documents.
Bettina Schmidt-Czaia (director of the CHA), she of all people criticized this ambitious project pointing out copyright issues and ensures indignations.
„Many scientists, that received ordered copies of our material in former times, are now putting them online to provied an access“, said Schmidt-Czaia to Cologne Courier. This might break „copyright-laws“ of the documents. „It would be better, if these copies would be handed to us“, she urged the scientists.
On the internet, this announcement created hard criticism. In the forum „Archivalia“ (among others), is pointed out that there do not exist copyrights for documents whose authors died over 70 years ago. Most of the documents are free to common (common free) and can be handed to others/third.

“Reconsider donation cooperativeness“

The fact that the head of the archive holds on to bureaucratical issues like copyright in this crisis caused a lot of unpleasure. Especially, when one relies on the help of active citizens to rescue the documents. At this moment, it is important not to exclude the scientists but to use their interest to reproduce as many documents as possible, as well as to receive financial support. In the forum as in the service Twitter already appeared a call to reconsider donation cooperativeness towards the archive.
User unfriendly charges in the former CHA are also criticized, taking a digital picture of a document with own camera cost 2 Euros each. The users of the archive state that these fees could be the reason why so less digitized copies were made over the last years.

Comment by Klaus Graf (Archivalia): Let us hope the CHA recognizes that Digital Historical Archive is a support and that a great offer to become a „Bürgerarchiv“ (citizen archive) is given. Hopefully the responsible body (Unterhaltsträger), the City of Cologne will understand that the standing on these fees to collect some little money is absurd in this situation, relying on civic support.
Cultural possessions are common properties, they belong to all of us. We must rap our politicians on the knuckles, when their administration trends towards removing this policy.
A more detailed position of mine towards this issue can be read in the article “Cultural possessions must be free to access” (Kulturgut muß frei sein) in the “Kunstchronik”: http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5254099/


News on the Cologne Historical Archive by Sebastian Post@Twitter from the 61. Westfaelische Archivtag (March 17th-18th 2009 in Detmold) via Archivalia

1. Archival material & finding aids
Many backup films were recovered.
The Cologne Historical Archive (CHA) queries the German government refering to the archival material backups which are stored in the Barbarastollen. The Barbarastollen is the so called "Memory of German culture". Here, 825 Mio images on microfilms are kept save.
The finding aids of the CHA are completely rescued.

2. Statement on access to digitized documents from the CHA
The CHA do not dislike! the access to uploaded digitized material from the Cologne archives collections via internet, but the CHA has to agree upon every initiative. (see also:

3. Needs and hopes
Manpower and support will be needed for a long time. For sure is: The memory of the city is not lost. We are working on the rescue!


Pictures from the Erstversorgungszentrum (EVZ), showing the divisiveness of rubble and archival material (press service city of Cologne March 16th 2009 via Archivalia)

"Yad Vashem has received an archival collection from Luxembourg, detailing the Holocaust’s affect on that country’s Jewish population.
The microfilms were presented Monday evening in Jerusalem by Center for Documentation on World War II director Prof. Paul Dostert, of Luxembourg, to Yad Vashem chair Avner Shalev.
The collection includes some 31,000 pages, covering daily life under German occupation, confiscations, restrictions, lists and orders of deportations to ghettos and concentration camps, as well as information on looted Jewish property, emigration to the US, declaration of Jewish assets, life in the Funfrunnen home for seniors, and information on some 60 mixed-marriage couples who managed to rescue their Jewish spouses." (via Tracing the Tribe)

On the ocasion of controversy about copyright questions and archival material uploaded to Cologne Digital Archive Website (see Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VII), Klaus Graf published a comprehensive article on Archivalia on the question:

"Ist die Reproduktion einer veröffentlichten Reproduktion urheberrechtlich nicht geschützten Archivguts durch einen Dritten ohne Zustimmung des Archivs [in Deutschland] zulässig?"

The information given by Graf might be interesting for anybody, who researches in German Archives using e.g. a digicam.

He summarizes:

"Für die in Benutzungsordnungen enthaltenen Genehmigungsvorbehalte bei der Reproduktion von Archivgut gibt es keine hinreichende gesetzliche Ermächtigung. Über die Bestandserhaltung und den Schutz der Rechte Dritter (Datenschutz, Persönlichkeitsrechte usw.) hinaus sind der Archivgesetzgebung einschließlich der Amtlichen Begründungen keinerlei Anhaltspunkte dafür zu entnehmen, dass der Gesetzgeber die Veröffentlichung von Archivgut reglementieren wollte. Da die Vorgaben des Bundesverfassungsgerichts zu Genehmigungsvorbehalten nicht beachtet werden, sind die entsprechenden Normen nichtig."

For the whole article on Archivalia, please follow th LINK (German).