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Holocaust Archive of International Tracing Service Now Open for Research
After more than 60 years, the archives of the International Tracing Service at Bad Arolsen have become accessible to the public. Historical researchers and other interested people can now examine archives and documents from the Second World War at the Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, Germany. Until now, such access had been granted only to the victims of Nazi persecution and their next of kin. The archives contain over 50 million documents regarding the persecution, exploitation and extermination of millions of civilians by the Nazis. The archives are open now that all 11 member states of the International Commission for the International Tracing Service have ratified the 2006 protocol amending the 1955 Bonn Agreements on which the International Tracing Service is based and informed Germany, the depositary state, of this ratification. “I am pleased that the archives of the International Tracing Service can now be opened for research,” said Minister of State for Europe Günter Gloser. “I would like to invite all researchers to make use of them and to investigate this dark chapter in German history.” The archives are administered by the International Committee of the Red Cross and were originally established by the British Red Cross in 1943. Since 1946 the Tracing Service has focused on clarifying the fate of civilians who were dragged away from their homes or disappeared during the National Socialist era. Its core documents originate from National Socialist offices and concentration camps. “The sheer dimensions of the collection and its unique nature both enable these documents to make plain the horrors inflicted systematically and on an enormous scale by the National Socialist regime from 1933 to 1945,” said ITS Director Reto Meister. “It will now be possible to carry out detailed research on, for example, the transport of prisoners, the camp populations, and the health of forced laborers.” Sources: Foreign Office, ICRC November 28, 2007 Links
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