Warlux - Crowdsourcing campaign

In February 2021, the WARLUX team launched a call for contributions to gather first-person accounts of individuals and families impacted by the Nazi draft in World War II. The response surpassed expectations, yielding over 200 calls and messages in the initial days. From February to October 2021, the team visited families, obtaining original documents, scanning, and cataloging them on campus.
Interactions with contributors were crucial for enriching collections with contextual information, enhancing source material for in-depth analysis. Contributors signed agreements setting out the terms of use of the data (e.g. copyright, use of personal data etc.) in alignment with data protection laws and with the approval of the Ethics Review Panel of the University of Luxembourg.
The survey concluded with 160 collections from distinct contributors, containing more than 5,000 letters and 20 diaries, forming a central repository for researching personal wartime experiences. With the support of student assistants, the corpus was entirely digitized and enriched with metadata for further research.  Part of the letters was transcribed using Transkribus by ReadCoop.
A selection of letters from the Digital WARLUX Collection is showcased here offering a glimpse into the diverse range of correspondences and personal wartime experiences.

Suitcase with war letters collected during the Warlux crowdsourcing campaign (Copyright C²DH)

Collection of letters and documents about Emile Kremer (Copyright C²DH)

During the WARLUX crowdsourcing campaign (Copyright Nina Janz)