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Arolsen Archives
The Arolsen Archives – International Center on Nazi Persecution formerly the International Tracing Service (ITS), in German Internationaler Suchdienst, in French Service International de Recherches in Bad Arolsen, Germany, is an internationally governed centre for documentation, information and research on Nazi persecution, forced labour and the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and its occupied regions. The archive contains about 30 million documents from concentration camps, details of forced labour, and files on displaced persons. ITS preserves the original documents and clarifies the fate of those persecuted by the Nazis. The archives have been accessible to researchers since 2007. In May 2019 the Center uploaded around 13 million documents and made it available online to the public. The archives are currently being digitised and transcribed through the crowdsourcing platform Zooniverse. As of September 2022, approximately 46% of the archives have been transcribed.
In 1943, the international section of the British Red Cross was asked by the Headquarters of the Allied Forces to set up a registration and tracing service for missing people. The organization was formalized under the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces and named the Central Tracing Bureau on February 15, 1944. After the war the bureau was moved from London to Versailles, then to Frankfurt am Main, and finally to Bad Arolsen, which was considered a central location among the areas of Allied occupation and had an intact infrastructure unaffected by war.
On July 1, 1947, the International Refugee Organization took over administration of the bureau, and on January 1, 1948, the name was changed to International Tracing Service. In April 1951, administrative responsibilities for the service were placed under the Allied High Commission for Germany. When the status of occupation of Germany was repealed in 1954, the ICRC took over the administration of the ITS. The Bonn Agreement of 1955 (which stated that no data that could harm the former Nazi victims or their families should be published) and their amendment protocols dating from 2006 provided the legal foundation of the International Tracing Service. The daily operations were managed by a director appointed by the ICRC, who had to be a Swiss citizen. After some discussion, in 1990 the Federal Republic of Germany renewed its continuing commitment to funding the operations of the ITS. The documents in the ITS archives were opened to public access on November 28, 2007.
Tracing missing persons, clarifying people's fates, providing family members with information, also for compensation and pension matters, have been the principal tasks of the ITS since its beginning. Since the opening of the archives, new tasks such as research and education and the archival description of the documents gain more importance in relation to the tasks of tracing and clarifying fates. Since these new activities are not part of its humanitarian mission, the ICRC withdrew from the management of the ITS in December 2012. The Bonn Agreement was replaced on December 9, 2011, when the eleven member states of the International Commission signed two new agreements in Berlin on the future tasks and management of the ITS.
ITS was founded as an organization dedicated to finding missing persons, typically lost to family and friends as a result of war, persecution or forced labour during World War II. The service operates under the legal authority of the Berlin Agreements from December 2011 and is funded by the government of Germany. The German Federal Archives are the institutional partner for the ITS since January 2013.
The organization is governed by an International Commission with representatives from Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, United Kingdom, and the United States. The Commission draws up the guidelines for the work to be carried out by the ITS and monitors these in the interests of the former victims of persecution.
The director of the ITS is appointed by the International Commission and is accountable directly to the commission. Since January 2016, Floriane Azoulay is the director. There are about 220 staff employed by the ITS. The institution is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.
On November 28, 2007, the ITS archives were made broadly available to the general public. The ITS records may be consulted in person, or by mail, telephone, fax or e-mail; addresses and contact numbers are available on the ITS website. Inquiries can be submitted to the ITS using the online form on the organization's website. The archives are also open for research.
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Arolsen Archives
The Arolsen Archives – International Center on Nazi Persecution formerly the International Tracing Service (ITS), in German Internationaler Suchdienst, in French Service International de Recherches in Bad Arolsen, Germany, is an internationally governed centre for documentation, information and research on Nazi persecution, forced labour and the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and its occupied regions. The archive contains about 30 million documents from concentration camps, details of forced labour, and files on displaced persons. ITS preserves the original documents and clarifies the fate of those persecuted by the Nazis. The archives have been accessible to researchers since 2007. In May 2019 the Center uploaded around 13 million documents and made it available online to the public. The archives are currently being digitised and transcribed through the crowdsourcing platform Zooniverse. As of September 2022, approximately 46% of the archives have been transcribed.
In 1943, the international section of the British Red Cross was asked by the Headquarters of the Allied Forces to set up a registration and tracing service for missing people. The organization was formalized under the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces and named the Central Tracing Bureau on February 15, 1944. After the war the bureau was moved from London to Versailles, then to Frankfurt am Main, and finally to Bad Arolsen, which was considered a central location among the areas of Allied occupation and had an intact infrastructure unaffected by war.
On July 1, 1947, the International Refugee Organization took over administration of the bureau, and on January 1, 1948, the name was changed to International Tracing Service. In April 1951, administrative responsibilities for the service were placed under the Allied High Commission for Germany. When the status of occupation of Germany was repealed in 1954, the ICRC took over the administration of the ITS. The Bonn Agreement of 1955 (which stated that no data that could harm the former Nazi victims or their families should be published) and their amendment protocols dating from 2006 provided the legal foundation of the International Tracing Service. The daily operations were managed by a director appointed by the ICRC, who had to be a Swiss citizen. After some discussion, in 1990 the Federal Republic of Germany renewed its continuing commitment to funding the operations of the ITS. The documents in the ITS archives were opened to public access on November 28, 2007.
Tracing missing persons, clarifying people's fates, providing family members with information, also for compensation and pension matters, have been the principal tasks of the ITS since its beginning. Since the opening of the archives, new tasks such as research and education and the archival description of the documents gain more importance in relation to the tasks of tracing and clarifying fates. Since these new activities are not part of its humanitarian mission, the ICRC withdrew from the management of the ITS in December 2012. The Bonn Agreement was replaced on December 9, 2011, when the eleven member states of the International Commission signed two new agreements in Berlin on the future tasks and management of the ITS.
ITS was founded as an organization dedicated to finding missing persons, typically lost to family and friends as a result of war, persecution or forced labour during World War II. The service operates under the legal authority of the Berlin Agreements from December 2011 and is funded by the government of Germany. The German Federal Archives are the institutional partner for the ITS since January 2013.
The organization is governed by an International Commission with representatives from Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, United Kingdom, and the United States. The Commission draws up the guidelines for the work to be carried out by the ITS and monitors these in the interests of the former victims of persecution.
The director of the ITS is appointed by the International Commission and is accountable directly to the commission. Since January 2016, Floriane Azoulay is the director. There are about 220 staff employed by the ITS. The institution is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.
On November 28, 2007, the ITS archives were made broadly available to the general public. The ITS records may be consulted in person, or by mail, telephone, fax or e-mail; addresses and contact numbers are available on the ITS website. Inquiries can be submitted to the ITS using the online form on the organization's website. The archives are also open for research.
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