• How many effects does the ITS preserve in its archives?
• Where do the personal objects come from?
• Which type of objects are the effects?
• How valuable are they?
• Who were the owners?
• What does the ITS do with the effects?
• How and to whom will the effects be returned?
• Will it be possible to identify all owners?
• How did the objects find their way to the ITS?
• Has the ITS managed to restore effects between 1963 and today?
• What happened with the effects between 1945 and 1963?
• In which condition are the effects today?
• Are any effects stored elsewhere?

The International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen still preserves in its archives about 3,300 effects. The term “effects” stands for personal objects seized from prisoners on their arrival at the concentration camp. For 2,800 of these effects, their former owners are known by name.

The effects mainly come from the concentration camps of Neuengamme (2,300) and Dachau (330). In addition some personal objects are from former prisoners of the Gestapo Hamburg (50), the concentration camps Natzweiler and Bergen-Belsen as well as the transit camps Amersfoort and Compiègne.

The effects include wallets, identification papers, photos, letters and in a few cases also fashion jewellery, cigarette cases, wedding rings, watches or fountain pens from the personal possession of former concentration camp inmates.

All actual objects of value, such as money or jewellery, were confiscated by the National Socialists, i.e. the effects are of no material, but of highly emotional value to family members. Sometimes they are the last memento of a prisoner.

It proves difficult to make a connection between the effects and specific prisoners’ groups, although it can be said that among the former owners of the personal belongings many were persecuted for political reasons. Their numbers are likely to include members of all nations whose territories were occupied by the National Socialists, most of them being Eastern Europeans. As regards concentration camp Dachau, the share of German persecuted individuals in effects’ owners’ numbers is considerable. Jewish internees or Sinti and Roma will only seldom figure as effects’ owners, since they were often not incarcerated to do slave labour but were murdered in extermination camps. Those who outlived the strains of the death marches and ultimately landed up in concentration camps in Germany hardly possessed anything or rather nothing that could be incorporated into the administration of effects in the camps.

The ITS aims to hand back as many effects as possible to the former owners themselves or their families. Often times it is difficult to find out, though, whether there are relatives and, if so, in which countries they live today. To meet this difficulty, the ITS has now published a list of names of effects’ owners on its website. The service will also lend out some of the effects that cannot be returned to the families to memorial centres and museums for exhibition purposes.

The effects’ list published on the ITS website contains the first and last names and the birth dates of the former prisoners and effects’ owners. If a family member discovers the name of a relative, he or she can send the ITS a brief message. Memorial sites, partner organizations, journalists and the interested public can also look into the list and help the ITS in the search for the former owners or family members. The return of effects is conditional on the applicant’s presenting his or her identity card or power of attorney and giving notice of the family relationship to the effects’ owner. The applicant undertakes to furnish proof on being entitled to receive the objects. The ITS prefers to personally return the belongings. In case this proves impossible, the personal belongings will be entrusted to a parcel service for transport. The recipient of the objects will release the ITS from any liability in the case of (family) litigation. Further legal claims cannot be made on the ITS.

The former owners’ names are known in 2,800 cases out of the total of 3,300 effects. When the ITS took charge of the effects in 1963, he engaged to stick to the structure the Administrative Office for Inner Restitutions (“Verwaltungsamt für Innere Restitutionen”) had given them. The institution had divided the effects roughly into objects of known and unknown owners. Over the decades to come, the effects of unknown ownership remained untouched. Late in 2009, though, the archives and research departments of the ITS launched the large-scale project of re-checking effects not yet identified. 900 effects from concentration camp Neuengamme classified “owner unknown” at the time were re-examined within the scope of the survey finalised in April 2011. This new analysis allowed the owners of 476 effects to be identified – a result made possible primarily by the prisoners’ numbers frequently appearing in the effects. But also letters, invoices or doctors’ notifications of sickness served as a basis for identification.

In all, about 4,700 effects were entrusted into the care of the ITS in 1963. They came from the Administrative Office for Inner Restitutions in Stadthagen (more than 4,300) and the Indemnification Office of Bavaria (“Bayerisches Landesentschädigungsamt”) in Munich (339). Being in the process of winding up its restitution work, the Administrative Office for Inner Restitutions transmitted the effects kept in its premises to the ITS. Most of these effects had been seized by the British Army shortly after the liberation of the concentration camp Neuengamme. A small portion of them originally had come from the Gestapo Hamburg and the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. The Administrative Office also received some personal belongings from the Red Cross in Hamburg, effects that were kept in the concentration camp Dachau. The effects the ITS received from the Administrative Office are mainly wallets. The indemnification office of Bavaria provided the ITS with private items taken from persecutees in the concentration camp Dachau. Compared with the effects held by the Administrative Office, the indemnification office predominantly kept papers, certificates, letters and photographs.

When the ITS took storage of the effects in 1963, the office launched a first large-scale search campaign for their owners. Within the scope of that action, Red Cross Societies, mainly in Russia, were sent effects and requested to take part in the search for any of their owners’ next-of-kin. And whenever inquiries for such owners were placed with the ITS, their private objects were returned to the inquiring family members. Over the decades, some 1,400 effects could be returned this way. In 2009, the ITS started a new initiative to hand back the effects left in the archives to the family members of Nazi victims. A CD Rom with photographs of the effects and lists with the names of their former owners was dispatched to concentration camp memorials, the international camp committees and to other partner organisations and in May 2011 an effect list was published on the ITS website. Another 100 personal belongings could be returned since then.

The personal items owned by the prisoners of concentration camp Neuengamme were taken over shortly after the liberation of Lunden, Schleswig Holstein. They were the remainder of the office responsible for administering prisoners’ personal belongings at Neuengamme (“Gefangeneneigentumsverwaltung”) that had been evacuated to Lunden. Pursuant to the ordinances of the time, the objects were confiscated by the British authorities. They handed the items to the Central Claims Registry (“Zentralamt für Vermögensverwaltung”) in 1948 and ordered the agency to restore them to their actual owners. This agency pursued its activities under the name of Administrative Office for Inner Restitutions as of 1955.

The effects owned by the prisoners of concentration camp Dachau were found when the camp was freed. But only a small part of them escaped destruction in a fire in May 1945. Until 1946, the personal belongings were kept by the International Information Office (“Auskunftsstelle Dachau”) that was charged with returning them. When that office had been closed, the effects were separated and sorted in valuables and personal papers. The valuables ended up at the German Red Cross Tracing Service in Hamburg, whereas the personal papers were transferred to the Bavarian State Commissariat for people persecuted for political, racial and religious reasons (“Bayrisches Staatskommissariat für politisch, rassisch und religiös Verfolgte”). The Indemnification Office of Bavaria was the successor organisation of the State Commissariat.

Of course, almost seven decades have left their marks on the personal items. Above all the paper of identity cards and letters has become brittle and fragile. Thanks to their storage in archives, the effects are in a relatively good condition, though. Letters and identity cards are legible.

Various memorial centres and museums still store some effects. But the owners of these belongings can be found or identified only in very rare cases, especially in former extermination camps. Their personal belongings are valued exhibits remembering and reminding the crimes of National Socialism.