  This paper presents ground-based data obtained from deep optical and infrared
observations of the HST Hubble Deep Field South (HDF-S) field carried out at
the ESO 3.5 New Technology Telescope (NTT). These data were taken as part of
the ESO Imaging Survey (EIS) program, a public survey coordinated by ESO and
member states, in preparation for the first year of operation of the VLT. Deep
CCD images are available for five optical passbands, reaching 2 sigma limiting
magnitudes of U_AB~27.0, B_AB~26.5, V_AB~26, R_AB~26, I_AB~25, covering a
region of ~25 square arcmin, which includes the HST WPFC2 field. The infrared
observations cover a total area of ~42 square arcmin and include both the HST
WFPC2 and STIS fields. The observations of the WFPC2 region were conducted in
JHKs passbands, reaching J_AB~25, and H_AB and K_AB~24.0. Due to time
constraints, the adjacent field, covering the STIS field, has been observed
only in R, I and JHKs, while no observations were conducted covering the NIC3
field. This paper describes the observations and data reduction. It also
presents images of the surveyed region and lists the optical and infrared
photometric parameters of the objects detected on the co-added images of each
passband, as well as multicolor optical and infrared catalogs. These catalogs
together with the astrometrically and photometrically calibrated co-added
images are being made public world-wide and can be retrieved from the
world-wide web (http://www.eso.org/eis).

Astrophysics