BZKO: An Ontology for the Card Index of German Post-War Compensation Records
TL;DR
A two-layer ontology for historical archival data that separates ontologically grounded domain semantics from interoperability-oriented extension constructs and lays the groundwork for future knowledge graph generation, ontology validation, and the incorporation of additional historical entities and uncertain temporal and spatial information.
Abstract
The Central Federal Card Index (Bundeszentralkartei) of Germany is a key archival resource documenting compensation claims submitted by victims of National Socialist persecution and their relatives, within the German Wiedergutmachung process. To enable semantically enriched representation, integration, and reuse of this historically significant collection, we present the BZK Ontology (BZKO). We propose a two-layer ontology for historical archival data that separates ontologically grounded domain semantics from interoperability-oriented extension constructs. The approach combines BFO-based realism with archival standards (RiC-O, PROV-O, PiCo), enabling provenance-preserving semantic integration, while maintaining logical rigor, modularity, and reuse across digital humanities infrastructures. The proposed approach establishes a reusable semantic foundation for the integration of Wiedergutmachung archival materials into digital humanities infrastructures and lays the groundwork for future knowledge graph generation, ontology validation, and the incorporation of additional historical entities and uncertain temporal and spatial information. The ontology is available on https://github.com/ISE-FIZKarlsruhe/bzko.