News archive

Two groups of students from the Justus Liebig University of Giessen have visited the International Tracing Service (ITS) to learn more about research possibilities on displaced persons available there. Their one-day visits to the archive took place within the context of a seminar entitled “Victim biographies of the...

Author Rainer Hoffschildt has dealt with the topic of Nazi persecution of gays for over 20 years. Now he wants to round out his extensive collection with the help of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen. “There has not been much research done on the group with the pink triangle,” the Hanover resident...

The history of the International Tracing Service (ITS) will be part of an upcoming exhibition in Bad Arolsen´s former barracks. The association “Historicum 20” is planning to document 20th century development of the barracks, which for a time after the war served as the tracing service´s headquarters.

“Filling in as many gaps as possible“ - According to this motto, three freelance workers from the Lichtenburg concentration camp memorial spent a week inspecting documents at the International Tracing Service (ITS).  “We wanted to round out the biographies of Lichtenburg prisoners, so our visit to ITS was...

Staff at the International Tracing Service (ITS) bid farewell to Director Reto Meister at their year-end ceremony on December 18. After two years Meister is returning to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) headquarters in Geneva. The ICRC has named the director of the ITS since 1955. “He was truly one...

Christian Kennedy, Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues at the U.S. Department of State and member of the International Commission, and Doria Rosen, Deputy Principal Officer at the United States Consulate General in Frankfurt, visited the International Tracing Service (ITS) to get an update on current progress. The...

Willy Zalmon is a Holocaust survivor. Along with his parents and uncle, he had to spend two years hiding in a hole in the ground on a farm, which is how at least part of his Jewish-Polish family managed to escape their Nazis persecutors. “For many years I was unable to talk about my ordeal because the memories were...

Nine genealogists from Israel have spent the week doing research in the International Tracing Service´s (ITS) archives. It was the first larger group from the Jewish nation since the archive opened a year ago. “The ITS is a springboard for researchers which provides countless ideas for further research,” said...

Rolf Ulrich, Germany´s new representative for the Federal Foreign Office in the International Commission, spent yesterday learning about the current status at the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen. The commission, which in addition to Germany comprises ten other member-states, governs the ITS´s work....

Historian Natalja Jeske spent two days gathering information at the International Tracing Service (ITS) for the “Friends of Barth Concentration Camp Memorial Site and Documentation Center” association. She plans to analyze the data in a new publication on the sub-concentration camp Barth to be published in the autumn...