News archive

“I knew in 1943 that I was alone in the world.” Steve Israeler was 14 when the US Army liberated him on the death march from Flossenbürg concentration camp to Dachau. His entire family was murdered in the Holocaust. After the liberation he and other children were taken to the monastery in Indersdorf, where a United...

Early in July Brigitte Entner from the Slovenian Scientific Institute in Klagenfurt came to pursue research at the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen. She dedicated her visit to the persecution of Slovenians in the Carinthian region under the Nazis’ reign. “Initially I had estimated casualties to amount...

“I had a good time in Arolsen,” remembers Ksenia Bettany, an Australian who lived in Bad Arolsen and Rennertehausen in the Waldeck Frankenberg district as a Displaced Person (DP) with her parents and siblings immediately following the Second World War. Ksenia and her son Romill made the 4-day trip to retrace her...

Manfred Kluge has paid a two-day visit to the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen pursuing research on behalf of the “Mendel-Grundmann-Gesellschaft e.V.” based in Vlotho. Three years ago the “Commemoration book on the Vlotho victims of the Nazi Persecution of the Jews” brought him already to the ITS....

A group of 36 archival science students at the Marburg School of Archives came to see and gain an overview of the work done and archives kept at the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen yesterday. The interest of the archivists to-be focused on the organisation of the archives, the origin of the documents...

Whoever has seen the movie “Schindler’s List” directed by the US American Steven Spielberg will remember the scene in which Itzhak Stern – portrayed by Ben Kingsley – has just finished typing the list with the names of the Jews to be saved from Krakow: he takes the last sheet of paper out of the typewriter, his hands...

For four days, Siegfried Berneis has searched in the archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen for the names of forced and civilian labourers who had been employed in the joint community of Schladen located in the rural district of Wolfenbüttel during the Second World War. His tracing endeavour...

The US Military Government initiated plans for a cemetery to hold the almost 600 casualties of the death march of Flossenburg Concentration Camp in the community of Wetterfeld (today Roding/Upper Palatinate) in 1945. The archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) still keep the drawings made for three...

Between 29th and 31st May 2011, Dr Wendy Lower from Munich University took an overview of the documents kept at the archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen. She also wanted to sound out opportunities of cooperation in initial talks. “The ITS archives opened only late in 2007....

“I feel relieved. I can find peace of mind after all”, 69-year-old George Jaunzemis sums up his feelings. He never knew who his mother was, which his real name was or where he was born – questions the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen has solved now. A four-year-old boy, George had been separated from...