Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit

Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit 

The Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit opened in German-occupied Kraków on 1940-06-20. The brainchild of Hans Frank, Governor General of the Generalgouvernement, the IDO was comprised of eleven sections: agriculture, art history, economics, forestry and woodworking, geology, history, landscaping and gardening, law, linguistics, prehistory, and Rassen- und Volkstumforschung (roughly “Racial and National Traditions Research” or IDO-SRV), whose three Referate (sections) also included one for Jewish studies. The Institute took over the offices in Kraków’s Jagiellonian University, much of whose professoriate was arrested and deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where many eventually died. 

National Museum of National History, www.mnh.si.edu