tracing – research – education

Tracing – Research – Education

Dr. Susanne Urban

Mission Statement

“The International Tracing Service serves victims of Nazi persecution and their families by documenting their fate through the archives it manages. The ITS preserves these historic records and makes them available for research.”

History ITS/ Predecessors

1944/45: Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces: Registration

1945-47: United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration: Repatriation

1947/51: International Refugee Organization: Repatriation/ Care/ Emigration

1951/55: Allied High Commission for Germany: Care/ Emigration

UNRRA ● IRO ● ITS

Responsible for Victims/ Survivors of …

Holocaust ● Nazi-persecution ●

Incarceration ● Forced Labor

Organisation ITS

1955: “…the ICRC, being a body with a neutral, impartial, universal and responsible character shall have charge of the administration and direction of the ITS.” ● Opening 2007 ● Withdrawal ICRC 01/2013

International Committee of the Red Cross

FutureInternational Commission

Archives: ca. 26 km

Documents 1933-1945;Alliied Order 163, 1945-1951;Predecessor Organizations;Copies since 1980s.Finding aid (CNI).

Incarceration / Camps;Forced and Slave labor;Aftermath (DPs);Historical Documentation;Child Search Branch;Maps;Camp Inmates‘ Possessions

Aims and Challenges

Humanitarian Work ● Archives ●

Research/ Education ● Access

Child Search Branch 1945-1951

„Unaccompanied Children“

Search – Registration or Documentation – Rehabilitation – Adoption – Emigration

Child Search Branch 1945-1951

Child Search Branch 1945-1951

“UNRRA was prepared to find people starving, sick, without clothing, displaced and homeless, but they were not prepared to handle a problem of stolen children.“ (12.4.1947)

Child Search Branch 1945-1951

“No stone is left unturned.“

“Each child is carefully interviewed by an UNRRA Child welfare Specialist“

“These children, whose age range from 8- to 16 years – [were] systematically starved, beaten and exposed to extremities … to help them regain confidence in other people“ (1946)

Education/ Survivors’ legacies

AIMS: AIMS: Citizenship Concept Empathy = Responsibility = Secondary testimony = Stories will not be forgotten

Thanks for your patience

Internet: www.its-arolsen.org

Mail: historical-research@its-arolsen.org