According to state archivist Jos Arends, the 75-year archive limitation is a limit. For example, some may still be alive. “You can touch very old people with this. That’s why we don’t put everything on the internet at a personal level, so that you can search through it automatically,” he explains. “But if you forbid everyone to leaf through such a book for research, then you are not doing justice to being allowed to tell a piece of Drenthe history. And that sometimes clashes. What do you tell, what do you not tell?”
The documents are mainly examined by journalists and historians, but also by people who want to know more about their family history. “For example, people whose relatives do not want to tell about the war past, but do want to know what it is.”
Today, the Drents Archief also publishes archive documents that have nothing to do with the Second World War. For example, a drawing of the presbytery garden of the Dutch Reformed congregation of Anloo has become available. As of today, documents from care institution Kruiswerk Drenthe may also be viewed. In it, “Sister Bosma explains in the late fifties how maternity care used to be,” according to the archive.
