Numerous documents on the perpetrators and massacres have been preserved, and distributed in archives in various countries. In the course of their activities during the occupation period, the German military, SS, and police headquarters produced a large amount of official documents. In part still during the war, Allied investigative authorities, and later the Italian police and judicial authorities, gathered material relevant to the massacres.  Large amounts of additional archival material were produced during the German and Italian investigations and trials of the 1960s and 1970s, and in the resumption of such proceedings starting in 1995. 

In our project, this material is above all of great value for reconstructing the massacres and their specific contexts. 

An additional archival source comprises personal papers of soldiers – not necessarily perpetrators - in the form of diaries and letters. This material offers an important basis for studying the mentality and perceptions of key actors, and for reconstructing the broader historical and generational context.