Razzia van Rotterdam Digitaal (R2D): Dataset Collection from the Ben Sijes Research Archive on the Rotterdam Razzia (1946–1951)

The R2D dataset collection was developed as part of the digitisation project 'Razzia van Rotterdam Digitaal' (2025-2026). The project aimed to digitally preserve, transcribe, and enrich a post-war research archive compiled by historian Ben Sijes between 1946 and 1951. This collection formed the empirical basis for Sijes’ study De razzia van Rotterdam, 10-11 november 1944 (Nijhoff, 1951).

Sijes’ research examined the large-scale razzias carried out by the Nazi occupation regime in and around Rotterdam in November 1944, during which approximately 52,000 men were forcibly removed from their homes and subjected to forced labour in the Netherlands and Germany.

The aim of the 2025-2026 digitisation project was to make this historically significant material sustainably accessible and reusable for both researchers and a broader audience. By applying contemporary digitisation and data enrichment methods, the project enables new forms of research, preservation, and presentation.

As part of this work, the questionnaires used by Sijes were not only digitised as images but also processed into a structured, machine-readable dataset. Using automated layout recognition and text recognition techniques, the project produced structured transcriptions of the questionnaire forms, linking the original survey questions to the transcribed handwritten responses of participants. This structured representation makes it possible to analyse the questionnaire data systematically and to connect individual responses.