Nazi letters reveal paper restorers' role in compiling Holocaust hitlist'

"Dr Morwenna Blewett, a researcher in conservation history and associate member of Worcester College, University of Oxford, unearthed Nazi letters and other material showing the role played by craftspeople in restoring registers of births, conversions, baptisms and marriages to seek out inherited racial status. In various public institutions including the German federal archives in Berlin, she found documents that show the complicity of these conservators, restorers and paper chemists, who used their skills within Germany and in occupied countries."

"They were creating an accumulated record of who might potentially be killed a kind of hitlist, really, she said. They went above and beyond to enforce their racial' registration of populations. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Even though it was known that there was this need to prove your heritage, Blewett said, she looked into the actual technical nuts and bolts of how this was achieved through cleaning documents."

Large numbers of paper restorers and bookbinders were recruited by the Nazis across Europe in the 1930s and 1940s and contributed directly to genocidal policies. A Europe-wide programme repaired and cleaned historic church and civil records, making registers legible so Nazi authorities could detect inherited Jewish ancestry. Nazi letters and administrative documents show conservators, restorers and paper chemists used their skills within Germany and occupied countries to create an accumulated record identifying potential victims. Officials engaged bookbinders and discussed cleaning documents to represent 'racial purity'. Surviving records show master bookbinder Franz Krause was among those recruited by 1940.

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