German Holocaust archive publishes inventory online
BERLIN (AP)— The International Tracing Service says it has published its Holocaust-era inventory online, offering an overview of holdings that include some 30 million documents on Nazi persecution, forced labor and the fates of survivors.
The archive, located in Bad Arolsen, Germany, said Monday that parts of the holdings that had undergone only preliminary indexing were also included. More detailed descriptions will be added gradually.
The ITS was established by the Western Allies in the final days of World War II and initially run by the Red Cross to help uncover the fates of Holocaust victims and others.
In 2007, scholars and researchers were allowed access to the documents, beginning the archive’s transformation from a tracing service to a research institution. The overview aims to help researchers prepare for visiting the archive.
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There is a great deal of interest worldwide in the documents of the archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) about former victims of Nazi persecution and the liberated survivors. A small part of this collection, which since 2013 is inscribed onto the UNESCO “Memory of the World” register, can now be viewed in a new online archive. The ITS has uploaded three collections in an initial step including photos of personal objects that were taken from the prisoners in the concentration camps. Also available are a collection on the death marches as well as files from the Child Search Branch from the time immediately following the liberation of Nazi victims.
Wallets with photos, engraved wedding rings, fashion jewellery, letters or identification papers: While being deported to concentration camps prisoners were usually only carrying the few things they had on them at the time of their arrest. Such personal belongings that were taken from the prisoners when they arrived at concentration camps are the so called “personal effects”. The International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen is still in possession of personal effects of some 3,200 former prisoners, 2,700 of whom are known by name. Of course, personal belongings of prisoners can also be found at other memorial sites and museums, yet knowing the name of the original owners is only possible in the rarest of cases.
The personal belongings generally have little material value but a high sentimental value for family members. More often than not they are a last personal memento. The goal of the ITS is to return the personal belongings to the former prisoners and their family members. Every year this is made possible in some cases, very often through cooperation with memorial sites and partner organizations or through journalistic research. Occasionally family members themselves contact the ITS, in this way also enabling the return of personal effects.
The personal effects are mainly from the concentration camps Neuengamme and Dachau. In addition there are some personal belongings from prisoners of the Hamburg Gestapo, concentration camps Natzweiler and Bergen-Belsen, as well as the transit camps Amersfoort and Compiègne.
