Reichsarbeitsministerium file carrier. Collection

The Reichsarbeitsministerium or RAM was created in 1919 as the successor of the Reichsarbeitsamt established the previous year. The Ministerium was responsible for establishing labour laws and the social policy in both the Weimar republic and the Third Reich. In the 1920s the Ministerium mostly focussed on the development of a national social policy including the care for war invalids, legislation regarding working hours and unemployment insurance. As of 1933 the institute’s focus shifted to activating and mobilising the German labour market. In 1936 the Ministerium started establishing a large work force to support the military rebirth of Germany. After the start of the Second World War in 1939, the Reichsarbeitsministerium was led by a Generalbevollmächtigte für den Arbeitseinsatz and participated in claiming forced labourers from the occupied territories. In 2017 a German research commission presented its first results on the role played by the Reichsarbeitsministerium in the Third Reich.

During the occupation of Belgium, representatives of the Reichsarbeitsministerium took over the Huis van de Arbeid, the offices of the regional unemployment office at Pelikaanstraat 98 in Antwerp. The Arbeitsambt Antwerpen [Work Bureau Antwerp] was subsequently installed there. Upon liberation, all archives of the Arbeidsambt Antwerpen were confiscated by the military prosecutor when collecting evidence on the role played by the employment office during the war. The file carrier, which presumably contained an index card system on (forced) labour, was emptied and was left behind in the basement of the building. In 1983, the Antwerp unemployment office, by then the Antwerp entity of the federal Rijksdienst voor Arbeidsvoorziening [National Employment Office], moved to Leeuwerikstraat. The archives, including the empty file carrier, were also transferred there. In preparation of renovation works, the Rijksdienst voor Arbeidsvoorziening, Antwerp entity, kindly donated the original object to Kazerne Dossin in 2019.

Rijksdienst voor Arbeidsvoorziening, Antwerp entity, 2019