The personal effects card was one of the earliest and most frequently used documents in the concentration camps. At the end of May 1938, the personal effects administrator at Buchenwald placed an order for “urgently needed” personal effects cards. The personal effects administration at Buchenwald ordered another 5,000 cards on September 22 and again on December 1, 1938. In the Arolsen Archives there are numerous letters from the personal effects administration of Buchenwald from 1938, which clearly reveal the volume of material that was regularly needed to manage all of the prisoners’ personal effects: thousands of small envelopes for valuables, hangers and sacks for clothing, tens of thousands of meters of twine to close the sacks, countless bed sheets, and fabric ink for making two number tags a piece for the prisoners to sew onto their clothing.