Officials of the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camp memorials recovered the original diary fragments from a metal in an ash pit at crematoria nr. 2 in Birkenau concentration camp on July 28, 1961. Main Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against the Polish Nation -Institute of National Memory in Warsaw, Poland, acquired the diary fragments shortly after its recovery. The Main Commission and Museum of Auschwitz and Birkenau made photocopies and microfilm copies in 1961. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives purchased a duplicate of the microfilm and photo prints of some of the manuscript's more legible pages in June 1998. The Archives received the microfilm and photographs in July 1998.