Immediately after the Liberation, the Information Bureau of the Netherlands Red Cross started trying to trace missing civilian and military persons. The bureau required certain information in order to be able to do that. It therefore collected and formed a large quantity of documents and archives, such as parts of the original camp administrations, prisoner administrations, transport lists, administrations of factories in Germany, and information about Dutch citizens who were forced to work in Germany. Some of the original camp archives of Amersfoort, Vught and Westerbork ended up not just with the Information Bureau, but also with what was then the State Institute for War Documentation, the present NIOD.

The Information Bureau became the War Aftercare Department, which still answers queries by next of kin about what happened to their loved ones during World War II. The Pension and Benefit Board also resorts to the archive for the verification of information. Given the highly personal nature of the material, the archive is not open to the public.

leaf through the War Aftercare Department inventories

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