ITS Arolsen

Meeting of "Lebensborn" children at the ITS in Bad Arolsen.

[04-29-2013]  

The annual meeting of the members of the association “Lebensspuren” (traces of life) has taken place this time at the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen. The association represents the interests of children who were born or raised in homes of the "Lebensborn” (spring of life). Lectures as well as a search in the ITS database were on the agenda. Besides, contemporary witnesses visited two schools in the region. „The ‘Lebensborn’ clearly reveals the two faces of National Socialism between care and extermination“, expressed Dr Susanne Urban, head of the research and education department, at the opening of the meeting.

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ITS Arolsen

Detleff Nordt spoke to pupils about the search for his own identity.

[04-29-2013]  

At the end of April 2013, Detleff Nordt reported on his search for his own identity before 23 students from the Wilhelm Filchner School, Wolfhagen. Nordt was born on 30 March, 1944, in the Lebensborn home “Pommern” in Bad Polzin. His mother had never talked about his father and the Nazi times. Historian Dr. Georg Lilienthal and high-school teacher Marcus von der Straten participated in the question and answer session that followed the lecture by the contemporary witness.

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ITS Arolsen

Researcher Andreas Weigelt.

[04-23-2013]  

Andreas Weigelt spent three days at the International Tracing Service (ITS) reviewing the document collection for the concentration camp Lieberose. Under the auspices of the parish, a commemorative book of Lieberose will be published next year. "At the ITS I can not only research the documents, but I can also search through the correspondence files that are valuable for my work," says the historian. "From the previous inquiries from survivors or family members of the victims of persecution, I hope to find yet more unknown information."

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ITS Arolsen

Three banners give examples of early post-war testimonies.

[04-08-2013]  

The Department for Historical Research and Education at the ITS presents three exhibition banners on the subject of “Early Post-War Testimonies”. Testimonies, u.e. statements of survivors, can be found in the ITS collections in many different forms and formats. “Early Post-War Testimonies” are also the subject of this year’s academic yearbook.

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ITS Arolsen

Exhibition on death marches shown at Hünfeld.

[04-02-2013]  

The touring exhibition “Looking for Traces – The Death Marches as Reflected in the Documents of the International Tracing Service (ITS)” will be shown at Konrad-Zuse Museum in Hünfeld until late April. It provides its visitors with an insight into the ITS documents on the subject and introduces individual fates as well as the feelings of the survivors. The death marches are considered to be the last organised mass crime of Nazi Germany.

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[03-22-2013]  

16 wives of mayors of towns located in the Waldeck Frankenberg district visited the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen yesterday. “Whenever we come together once a year, we meet in another place to come to know by and by all other places and communities”, said the Arolsen mayor’s wife Sabine van der Horst. She works at the ITS and has arranged for this year’s meeting.

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ITS Arolsen

Zweitägiges Seminar zum Thema Menschenbilder.

[03-18-2013]  

In cooperation with the Red Line pilot project and IKARus, the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen held a two-day training program in mid-March on “Language and Viewpoints – How Homophobic Views Are Developed and Abandoned.” With a total of 16 participants, the aim of the training was to create an awareness of the language used in Nazism and develop a sensitization of those people who express prejudices or crossed the "red line" to join the extreme right. “Analyzing linguistic patterns may reveal prejudices and categorize them for the purposes of prevention or might ensure that prejudices do not even occur,” said Dr. Reiner Becker, head of the Red Line project.

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ITS Arolsen

Monique Leblois-Péchon vom Französischen Nationalarchiv.

[03-15-2013]  

Archivist Monique Leblois-Péchon from the French National Archives has paid a two-day visit to the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen studying the digital database and research methods for individual fates and topics. The French National Archives  that had received a copy of the ITS archives in December 2010 plans to obtain the software needed to operate the ITS database.

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[03-07-2013]  

40 representatives of around 35 Hessian Memorials and commemorative initiatives have joined for a one-day meeting in Bad Arolsen in the beginning of March. Invited for the conference by the Hesse Centre for Civic Education (Hessische Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung / HLZ), they had a chance to inform themselves about the tasks and activities of the International Tracing Service (ITS) and to visit the Historicum 20 Museum. “To come to see the ITS centre for information, documentation and research has been a particularly interesting experience for the researchers and educators among us”, said Monika Hölscher from the HLZ.

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[02-26-2013]  

Robert Kain came to the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen late in February 2013 to do research for his dissertation “Otto Weidt. Developing from an anarchist into a ‘Righteous among the Nations’. 1883-1947”. Otto Weidt had tried to protect his Jewish staff from deportation during the era of National Socialism by using his influence as owner of a manufactory. “I compare the data of his protégés with the information in the ITS database, add new details and try to resolve contradictions”, explains the historian.

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ITS Arolsen

Steve Stulman and his daughter Laura.

[02-18-2013]  

On the footsteps of his family history, Steve Stulman from New York, along with three of his adult children, visited the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen. The family looked at original documents in the archives, and visited the birthplace of the mother and the memorial in Breitenau where the great-grandfather died in a labor camp in June 1941. “The program of this visit is especially for them,” Stulman said, referring to his children.

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ITS Arolsen

Phyllis and Ralph Mollerick.

[02-13-2013]  

“It makes a difference to see it with your own eyes,” Ralph and Phyllis Mollerick said during a visit to the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen. The couple from Florida came to North Hesse to visit the exhibition “Legalized Robbery” and to receive the award of honorary citizenship in neighboring Wolfhagen, the birthplace of Ralph Mollerick. They both took the opportunity to get to know the ITS archives and see the documents on the fate of the family Möllerich.

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ITS Arolsen

Jens Leder and Dr Gabriele Bergner.

[02-07-2013]  

Their aim to lay ‘stumbling stones’ victims of the Nazi persecution in Teltow has led the two historians, Gabriele Bergner and Jens Leder, to the International Tracing Service (ITS) this week. For the members of an initiative from the German town Teltow this was the second visit to Arolsen. "On our previous trip we successfully researched the fate of Jewish residents," explains Bergner. "That's why we came back."

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ITS Arolsen

Lilo and Bernhard Keßler in the ITS reading room.

[01-31-2013]  

Late in January 2013, Lilo and Bernhard Keßler came to research in the archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen about prisoners who had perished in Concentration Camp Engerhofe. The sub-commando had had a mere three-month existence. “Our intention is to give back to the victims their individual identities, their individual faces by retracing their lives”, explained the researcher. “To do so, we need complete information such as birth dates and places. At the ITS we could find data that add to some biographies we have already been tracing.”

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ITS Arolsen

The authors Eva Gruberová and Helmut Zeller.

[01-28-2013]  

"I will bring you home," said Miriam Rosenthal daily to the baby growing inside her womb. A pregnancy in a concentration camp for Jewish prisoners usually meant a death sentence. But seven women, in the midst of the destruction of life, brought seven children into the world. This unusual story in the book "Born in a Concentration Camp, tells of seven mothers, seven children, and the miracle of Kaufering I." On the recent occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the authors Eva Gruberová and Helmut Zeller at the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen, read some excerpts.

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ITS Arolsen

The members of the International Commission in Arolsen on 30 November 2012.

[01-16-2013]  

On the occasion of a meeting in Berlin of the eleven-nation International Commission, which defines the guidelines for the activities of the International Tracing Service (ITS), Federal Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and the Minister of State for Culture Bernd Neumann have paid tribute to the work of the ITS. “The tracing service makes an important contribution to the study of the National Socialists’ terror regime. The institution has helped to clear up fates and reunite families torn apart by terror, war and dictatorship”, said Neumann.

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ITS Arolsen

Nathalie Letierce-Liebig, secrétaire de la Mission.

[01-07-2013]  

The French Liaison Mission at the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen has been closed on 1 January 2013 with the entry into force of the international Agreements on the International Tracing Service (ITS) signed in Berlin. Meanwhile these agreements have been ratified by six of the eleven states represented in the International Commission, the body that defines the guidelines of the ITS activities.

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