Digital archive on forced labor of the Dutch during WWII visited over 400,000 times

The digital archive of Dutch people who had to perform forced labor in Germany during the Second World War was accessed more than 400,000 times in the first week. This was announced by the National Archives on request. Since November 29, it has been possible to search for information about Dutch forced laborers in Germany by name.

In the first week that the archive was online, the National Archives website was visited 369,000 times. That is more than eight times as many as the week before, according to the organization. "We continue to have almost twice as many website visits every day, mainly looking at the search aid and index of the Labor Deployment."

On the first day, the archive went online, the National Archives website had over 215,000 visitors - a record. The website was therefore overloaded. The previous visitor record was set on April 23, 2021, when 1.9 million records on slavery and the slave trade were available online. At that time, 37,000 people visited the archive's website.

The archive of forced laborers and people who were in Germany during or shortly after the war for other reasons has been digitized over the past 18 months. It can now be searched by name, which is much easier than it used to be when a search required entering the place of residence.