News archive

The Waldeckian Association of History presented the book “International Tracing Service Arolsen” by teh author Bernd Joachim Zimmer to the public yesterday. It is the first publication on the history of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen that gives comprehensive coverage of the institution’s early...

Andrea Genest came to the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen this week to investigate the immediate post-war history of the former prisoner of war camp in Sandbostel. “This phase in the camp’s history has been hardly explored yet”, said the scholarly assistant of the Memorial. “In the ITS holdings I...

Late in September 2011, Frank Baranowski came to see the archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) preparing his book titled “Rüstungsproduktion in Deutschlands Mitte von 1923 bis 1945” (Armaments’ Production in Germany’s centre from 1923 to 1945). “With this book, I intend to create transparency on...

A document in the ITS archives states that Josef Küstrin, a Yugoslavian forced labourer in agriculture, was shot dead “on 15 April 1945, probably by a SS man in the woods” near Twiste (eight km/5 miles from Arolsen) – that is several days after the US Army had freed the region. His mortal remains were not discovered...

In the company of his family, Michael Dimor spent a week in Germany seeing the home places of his Jewish Family. The Israeli felt the need to also have a stop at the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen. On site, he looked at records from Concentration Camp Buchenwald, cards from Transit Camp Westerbork,...

For two weeks, Ruth Balint has been studying documents from the record group on Displaced Persons (DPs) at the archive of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen. In so doing, she focused on the post-war migration movement to Australia. “The records from the immediate post-war period are a thrilling read...

Ministry official Dr Martin Ney and Harald Gehrig from the German Foreign Office came to see and get a personal impression of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen yesterday. While Ney takes part in the negotiations for the future of the tracing service, Gehrig is the Representative of the Federal...

Jean Klerykowski, whose father was imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp during the Second World War, visited the International Tracing Service (ITS) in early September 2011 to present his second book “Après les camps… Le calvaire continue” (After the camps… Calvary continues) and to thank the ITS-based...

Israeli Emmie Arbel and her sisters-in-law Alice Hoffmann and Nel van Het Kaar visited the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen yesterday to see documents concerning the fate of their family. Emmie was seven years old when she was liberated from the Ravensbrück concentration camp. “It is not easy for me...

Ullrich Messmer, representative of the Social Democratic Party in the German Bundestag, came to inform himself on the work done by the International Tracing Service (ITS) on 23 August 2011. He visited the archives’ premises and listened to explanations given on the digitisation of the collections, the treatment of...