Accenture technology helps the Arolsen Archive quickly extract information from Nazi-era documents; To date, more than 160,000 names of victims added to the archive have been identified through it
A team of volunteers from Accenture has built an artificial intelligence-based (AI) solution that helps extract information about Nazi victims from the “Arolsen” archive in Germany – the world’s largest archive of Nazi documents. The new solution is 40 times faster than any solution that has been known to date, and so far more than 160,000 names of victims have been identified and added to the archive.
The Arolsen Archive contains over 110 million documents documenting the Nazi persecution. An essential part of the archive’s work is to make these documents accessible to all who seek to seek out the fate of Holocaust victims and survivors.
In an effort to make the search for information as accessible as possible, Arolsen began a process of digitizing all the documents and publishing them online a few years ago. Since these are old documents, a human eye is required for the translation, reading, transcription, cataloging and verification of these documents, which may take decades. In fact, it has taken an average of four people to date to accurately index four documents in one hour.
Ian Laver, an accessory volunteer and activist in the company’s Jewish employee group, which employs about 670,000 people worldwide, quickly realized that artificial intelligence could accelerate this process significantly. Lover was able to recruit other volunteers at Accenture, and within 10 weeks the team was able to create a dedicated AI solution for indexing the Arolsen Institute documents.
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Accenture Project
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The volunteers were able to use an existing AI Accenture solution that uses optical character recognition and other advanced technology that allows information to be extracted from documents that are particularly difficult to read for the human eye as well. These include records of prisoners and detainees containing dozens of lines as well as records of concentration camps and other administrative documents of the Nazi regime containing information about the location and fate of entire families.
Because the AI captures the information faster and increases its accuracy as the process progresses, four volunteers can now validate about 160 documents in one hour – 40 times the power multiplication. Since Accenture implemented the solution in December 2021, more than 160,000 names of victims of Nazi persecution have been added to the Arolsen Institute’s index, more than 18,000 documents have been extracted, and more than 60,000 documents have been grouped into similar groups to improve identification and analysis. . About 1,000 Accenture people have volunteered for the project to date, with the company also supporting the maintenance and further development of the artificial intelligence solution.
“We are proud of the efforts of our employees to help and preserve the memory of those who went through unimaginable hardships and suffering, especially at a time when anti-Semitism, racism and extreme nationalism are once again erecting their ugly heads,” said David Matnik, Director of Education and Public Sector at Accenture, USA , And whoever took the project under his wing.
Florian Azoulay, Director of the Arolsen Archive: “Our collaboration with Accenture’s team is extraordinary in every aspect of it. Many around the world find out what happened to their loved ones. “