News archive

Archives around the world are putting collections online and gaining experience with digital usage. Through the EHRI (European Holocaust Research Infrastructure) network, trailblazers in this development are meeting in Bucharest this week to present their projects.

Some 16,000 meters of documents, 244 tons of weight, 12 staff members and 2,675 hours of work – the International Tracing Service’s (ITS) world documentary heritage is moving. As of 2013 the original documents in the ITS archives are included on the UNESCO “Memory of the World” registry. Since May 8, 2017, skilled...

What value do documents on victims of Nazi persecution hold for archive education? This question was the focus of the 31st archive educators’ conference with some sixty participants from archives and memorials in Germany and Switzerland. Taking place at the International Tracing Service (ITS) for the first time in late...

On May 19, 2017 Karen Franklin, Director of Family Research at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, updated herself about the processing of inquiries and the status of digitization at the International Tracing Service(ITS). It was her first visit to Bad Arolsen. "I can feel an impressive commitment to easing access to...

Travelling circus people during the National Socialist era are the focus of an interdisciplinary European research project. Project director Malte Gasche of the Centre for Nordic Studies at the University of Helsinki describes the background and aims of the research and the project’s use of various events to reach the...

Gustave Oeyen, a member of the resistance, survived the hardships of imprisonment in the Neuengamme concentration camp. The fact that some of his personal belongings have been preserved as effects came as a complete surprise to his son. Jean-Marie Oeyen recently visited the International Tracing Service (ITS) to claim...

It was commemoration and recognition that brought the one-time prisoner of war and concentration camp inmate Alexandr Afanasjew to Germany shortly before May 9, the day marking Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany. The ninety-four-year-old came to the International Tracing Service (ITS) with his daughter and...

On 3rd May 1945 more than 6,000 concentration-camp prisoners died during the bombardment of the ships “Cap Arcona” and “Thielbek” in the Bay of Lübeck. The International Tracing Service (ITS) holds documentation on the identification of those who died from the maritime catastrophe as well as documents relating to the...

On April 29, 1945, the U.S. Army received marching orders to liberate the Dachau concentration camp. On their arrival at the camp, 32,000 survivors—many of whom were seriously ill—awaited them. The “first meeting of the International Inmates’ Committee in the liberated Dachau camp” took place the very next day. The...

How can the ITS make the most effective use of its research capacity? In the interview Henning Borggräfe, Head of the Research and Education Branch, talks about new projects and promoting research.