The volume presents a collection of texts describing contemporary research findings into the documentation of the Sektion Rassen und-Volsktumsforschung of the Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit (IDO)—a Nazi-led institution that was established in occupied Poland during World War II.
The research project was carried out by anthropologists from the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology together with representatives of other disciplines: historians, sociologists, and physical anthropologists from Jagiellonian University. The studies and papers are based on an analysis of a vast body of documents and photographs. It is first of all a vast collection of sources connected with research carried out by Sektion Rassen-und Volkstumsforschung IDO, kept at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The authors refer as well to previously unknown documents discovered during queries conducted over the last few years. The available sources provide greater insight into the activities of the Institut für Deutsche Ostarbeit as well as make it possible to verify the existing information concerning the character of research carried out by Sektion Rassen-und Volkstumsforschung.
The book contains a rich number of illustrations: Photographs, medical and anthropological questionnaires, psychological tests, and questionnaires containing sociological and ethnographic information not only help visualize, but in a significant way complement the text of the publication.