Building plans’ archives help reconstruct Rotterdam’s past

ROTTERDAM – Archivists are still trying to re-construct Rotterdam’s history, over 65 years after the city core of Rotterdam was destroyed by German bombs. Along with hundreds of people who were killed during this brutal act of aggression, the city’s archives were destroyed along with numerous buildings. The archives of the city’s building inspectors, or Bouwpolitie, survived however and will be digitized so part of the Rotterdam’s history is accessible again. Other archives in danger of a more obscure enemy, erosion in various forms, will also be digitized and so saved for future generations. Included are Breda’s records of the period from 1624-1667 (covering the Treaty of Breda in 1667 which settled the Second English War), a file documenting Leeuwarden’s controversial 1951 court case dealing Frisian language rights, and the collection on the famed Leiden Observatory, which is part of the university archives.